Puff Most Epic
by RuffDraft
Summary: Eight long, terrible years have passed since we last saw the Powerpuff Girls.
1. Chapter 1, Part 1

"Puff Most Epic"  
Written by RuffDraft  
Concept, Direction, and Editing by BeeAre  
"Powerpuff Girls" Created by Craig McCracken

Chapter One – The City Of Townsville

Part One – A Storm Of Strength And Steel

* * *

It was a slow, dark, dank day in the city. It was nearly silent except for the sound of rustling garbage in the alleys, the military aircraft in the distance, and the occasional mugging a couple streets over. This time of day on a Sunday, hardly anyone was in the city that didn't need to be. Crime being what it was in the city—especially now that the Girls were out of commission, Robin no longer felt safe staying too long. Her hurried gait carried her away from the grocery store, leading her along the sidewalk to her house. She slowed as she got close and followed the pathway up to her front door. She went inside, greeted her mother absently and trudged to her room. She dropped her backpack lazily to the floor and fell back onto her bed. She took a deep breath, trying to relax, staring up at the white ceiling, not even bothering to count the rough little bumps in her field of vision. She rolled her head back and pointed her eyes out the window, peering into the somber, overcast sky. Her eyes relaxed back to the ceiling with a sigh. Dark skies always made her sad. They made her remember that day, that horrible day, so long ago.

How many years had it been since they met? She had met them in Kindergarten. They were going to be in high school now. She did the math. It had been eight, almost nine. She sighed bitterly at the thought. If only she were still here. For one, Robin would never had been this lonely. She and the girls used to play all the time. That had all changed very suddenly. The longer they spent apart, the further apart they grew.

Now they just weren't the same. Robin had tried to hang out with them, but they were never in the mood. Either too angry or too sad. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't distract them long enough to make them forget.

And somehow, it had gotten worse. No more trails of light in the sky. It was horrible. Even to her. Still, she loved them all. Losing your best friends didn't come close to what they'd been through, even if it still hurt.

She sat up, staring at her feet, dangling with her calves over the edge of the bed. She rolled her ankles idly, staring at the pink-died leather of her shoes. She nudged off the left shoe with her right shoe, and then her right shoe with her left foot as they hit the floor one after another with a dull thud. She wiggled her toes and turned to stare out the window overlooking Townsville. If she looked hard enough, she could just barely make out the hospital where—

Her eyes went wide and she ran to the window, pushing herself up on her toes to get a better look. That trail of light...!

She gulped against her dry throat as she stared out her window at the city, looking for more flashes of light. This was either very good, or not.

* * *

Mark snapped his gaze skyward, his breath still with dread. This city never saw darker days, he realized as he scanned the skyline with his eyes. The years had gone by and time had done its number on the once-fair city. Now, it swelled with chaos, boiled with anger, and flooded with evil. Half the city was destroyed, and what wasn't was filled with crime and debauchery.

This city was broken. Of that, he was certain. It wasn't just the abandoned buildings, or the condemned ones... it was everything. The streets were cracked and uneven, some even looked like there had been an Earthquake, and Townsville didn't have any fault lines running through it. Some apartment complexes no longer even had running water. People in the street had figured out how to get the hydrants to begin spraying water, and at night, everyone crowded around them to fill up their bottles and jugs. All over the city, the city would spray water into the streets, the homeless would crowd around, and just as quickly, they would disperse, the now-shut hydrants freshly dripping.

There weren't any police anymore—at least not here in the broken streets—but the military had set up a blockade at the far end of the city—the part that had been torn down in order to save the rest. Mark hadn't dared venture to take a look, but news spread fairly quickly, even in the underground. Within minutes of something happening, news would already be passed from one end of the city to the other, and if you were close enough, you could hear them talking. They always gathered in small groups, and then dispersed just as quickly after. Any of the other hobos that heard clearly enough would tell the rest of the group.

If he listened real hard most of the time he was sure he could hear the sounds of the military shouting or drilling or whatever the Hell they were doing now. But even with them there, watching over the city, still no one was safe. All the times he listened in to conversations on the street, the voices he heard echoed his own thoughts. Between the Girls and the military, I'm not sure which is worse. All the fighting, the destruction... just staying alive had been a day-to-day struggle. Over the past few hours, Mark could have sworn he had heard sounds he hoped never to hear ever again. A quick pulse here, another several minutes later, each no more than a few seconds at a time. But the sounds were unmistakable. It was the flight of a Powerpuff Girl.

And that was what made Mark feel so afraid right now. He had just heard it, no more than a second, and he watched the sky warily, listening for more, but the direction had been lost.

Even now, he was sure he could hear someone talking about it in the streets behind him, and he strained to listen more closely.

"...you hear? …is back ... seeking revenge..."

"...not safe here... you ... tell the boss ..."

He realized with a pang of misery that his fears were confirmed. He needed to move quickly. For the moment, he set the terrifying thought aside and tapped his wristwatch carefully, and held it to his ear. It was ticking. Was the time right? A little bit after five o'clock? He glanced up at the sky, this time gauging the relative light. It was really too cloudy to tell, but he was sure it was much later in the day. But the watch worked. And it looked gold-plated. Maybe he could sell it. But before that, he needed to find food. His family was starving, and so was he.

He pulled the ratty coat tighter around him and stared out into the street. He turned his eyes around the corner, looking into the empty street, looking one way, and then the other. He started across, heading for the alley between Carl's Sporting Goods and Frank's Meat Market.

There was a loud clanking sound, like someone had hit a baseball with a steel bat, and it had come from the park. He turned his eyes skyward, and his jaw dropped. A teenage brunette dressed in a green one-piece with a black horizontal stripe sailed across the sky, and the familiar piqued whine of energy and effervescent peridot trail of light followed in tune with her. Mark stared at her in horror and sprinted into the alleyway across the street, hidden from sight.

* * *

Buttercup growled in her throat as she struggled against her pain. She finally rolled her shoulders forward, curling, rolling quickly towards her feet as she righted herself and shot back at the thing before her. It was gigantic, its eye glowing red, a spherical, polished metal body, and four large, smooth tree-trunk-thick tendrils that whipped around it with speed that didn't match its overwhelming size. When they did, it appeared to take on four more arms; it became a metal octopus, its deadly appendages making wide arcs in a blur. It lurched towards her, swinging at her with amazing speed.

But she was faster...when she needed to be. She shot towards the robot, dodging its swings, spiraling in and latching on to its body, staring fiercely, glaring into its one eye. The force of her tackle brought it to the ground, and it seemed to be looking up at her as it pushed itself up to stand on all fours.

"WHERE IS SHE? GIVE HER BACK!" She reared and swung, her fist glancing off the glassy eye, not even so much as marring its surface.

In reply, the metallic thing simply swung its two hind legs up and knocked her simultaneously on both sides of her head. She clutched her temples in pain and it flipped backwards, batting her once more up into the air. The sound of bells and whistles in her ears and the way her temples throbbed made her eyes blur and vision shake. She might not have thought it was possible to see both at once, but she was in too much pain.

She eventually blinked her eyes clear as she finally regained her balance, and rolled out of the way at the last second as the robot swung hard at empty air. It swung again and she blocked it with both arms, holding on to keep from being thrown back, and stopped its movement. She grit her teeth and threw the metal limb aside, and threw herself at the robot's body, and with a feeling of victory, she connected. The air around her punch rippled outwards and the robot was shot like a huge cannonball into a small row of building near the edge of the city. It crashed through the first building, glanced off the second, and rolling itself into the streets below. A few vagrants fled hastily in an attempt to get away from the destruction.

In the time it took the thing to get to its feet, she had already hidden herself. She flew to the next street, and watched it from the alley, as it turned away from her, staring into the sky. It hadn't seen her. Now was the time to end it.

She burst forth from her hiding spot, and swung hard, but this time, she missed as it pulled back with just an inch of empty space between her fist and its hull. She turned and was greeted by a solid uppercut, sending her rolling once more into the air.

She reeled from the pain, and as her ascent began to slow, opened her eyes.

She watched it get closer to her, and watched it start to spin in midair, its legs moving as fast as a helicopter as it shot past her and stopped right in her path.

Move, dammit, she shouted at her body, but she couldn't put forth the energy. She flexed her muscles and clenched her teeth harder, feeling it come back little by little.

It was charging, and she knew that attack. It had used it once before. Her eyes wide, she finally burst sideways, just out of the beam of molten plasma that missed her by nearly an inch. She darted under the wave, flying along an empty street of ruined buildings, instinctively avoiding contact with the fire. She knew the damage it would do to her and was desperate to get away.

The robot fell though the plasma that still lingered in the air unharmed, and landed in the street right in front of her. She realized too late what it was doing, as it landed with three of its legs, the fourth aimed right at her. Without warning, from the extended leg, it fired a steel ball attached to a great wire. The plasma had her trapped where she was, and she thought she had no other option. She took the brunt of the attack, and caught the steel ball in her arms.

She didn't realize the mistake before she had made it; as soon as it was in her arms, she was bathed in a terrible, blinding light.

It seemed to her as if it were coming in slow-motion, as if time had nearly stopped as the scarlet light enveloped her. She could feel the intense heat of the blast, even as it crept over her, and with it came an intense pain. For a moment, she couldn't move. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, and her eyes went wide, then shut tight as the pain was too much for her. The air that was trapped in her lungs came out then, as a roar, an agonized scream, and she couldn't think of anything else. The pain erased all other sensations, even thought, as it tore through her mind. And then, following the pain, came the only other sensation that she associated with pain:

Rage.

Her eyes ripped open, and she saw her enemy before her. In that instant, with the robot still on the attack, she tore upwards, striking the ball away, which threw the machine off-balance and stopped its discharge even as it readied another strike. The pain stopped, and she could clearly see her target as it retracted the sphere to its leg and came back down on her. Her anger, still blazing, burned hotter than the plasma still lingering on her skin, and her body gave off an emerald hue as she surged forward, hellbent on destruction.

She dodged its swing and kicked it into the air, like she were punting a football. Flying after it, it flailed wildly, but none of its attacks connected. She wove around them, and hit it again, climbing higher as it was launched further into the sky.

Danger levels were rising, and the robot plotted its next move.

It spun forward in a wide arc, trying to spike her like a volleyball, but in that instant, its movements stopped. Buttercup was holding on to its leg, and kept it there for a brief moment before letting it drop. It seemed to hover in midair for an instant before falling, and she moved on top of it before it could even think.

It saw her, and searched futilely for an escape. It recognized that the danger was too great, and by that time, it had already lost.

Buttercup delivered a flurry of punches as if she were a living jackhammer. She darted to the other side, repeating her attack, and again at another angle, changing its momentum in different directions on instinct several times before she raised her leg over her head and brought it down directly on its body. And as it plummeted, she raced with it, her fists flying.

Shockwave after shockwave tore into the air around her as the robot's metal frame cracked, fractured, and shattered, leaving a trail of shrapnel around her as the burning rage took control of her body and ripped her enemy to shreds.

Again she reared. She felt it give. Her fist embedded in the robot's eye. The feeling of slow-motion returned, and she watched herself shatter it like a beautiful crimson firework. The red glass glittered in the air as the rest of the robot plummeted to the ground like a twisted meteor. She landed a moment later, only feet away, breathing hard, staring at the oversized broken toy with fading anger.

All was silent except for the occasional sound of sparking electrical circuits.


	2. Chapter 1, Part 2

Part Two – Core

* * *

Buttercup stood over the decimated scraps of the robot. What was once smooth tendrils of carbon-steel now resembled baked calamari. It was twisted and scraped all over, and mud had caked on in the fight through the park, tarnishing its surface.

As she stood, the effect of her adrenaline wore off and she was reminded of the throbbing in her arm and the cuts on her face and burns on her body. Her hands by this time were calloused from years of fighting, and she felt the rough skin on her hand against her arm as she put some pressure on her muscles.

Her scars were tingling. The sensation from the blast felt like a sunburn all over her skin, but the scars were the worst. Torn and faded. She felt them under her clothing, pulsing, the mark on her left forearm, the bite on her right shoulder, the cut down her left eye. She winced.

It felt like she had broken some ribs, but at least she wasn't coughing up blood.

She pursed her lips and then wiped at a newly-formed cut.

As she stood staring at the robot, she felt an incredible anger.

"Where is she?" she demanded. She could only stand, and watch the sparks from the broken hull as it refused to respond. "ANSWER ME!"

She lashed out at the crumpled remains, ripping open the main body in the process, electricity flashing and making smoke like thick fog, making her blink reflexively. She approached the machine again, staring into the center of the body, and she stopped. Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped, and her entire body trembled in shock and horror.

Inside, hooked up and linked to the complex circuitry of the metal monster was her sister.

The sister it couldn't be.

Blossom.

_Oh my God... But... it couldn't... what—but . . . s h e . . ._

Her body was thin, emaciated, as if she hadn't eaten properly in years.

She wasn't moving.

Buttercup simply stood, a numbness overtaking her, deep in her mind. She heard from a distance, "Get it!" A voice from her memory?

Did she just move?

She felt a slight impact on her hand and started. Had she just spaced out? She looked at her sister, strapped to the inside of this twisted robot, and a million thoughts raced through her mind. What was she doing here? She was dead! But... she was still alive, after all this time?

Wait! If she was inside the robot, that means that she was feeling every hit Buttercup was giving the robot! She stared at her sister's body. Pale. Unmoving.

She had killed her! No... no!

She hadn't been dead. She was alive, in the robot. And now, she had killed her! Shock turned to horror and made her mind turn over on itself, and her eyes swelled.

Buttercup couldn't remember the last time she had cried, but there, on the street, with nobody looking, she felt the tears well up in her eyes and let them go. She fell to her knees, sobbing at the sight of Blossom wrapped in this twisted circuitry...a metal tomb. She wept, salt water streaming down her cheeks, and held her sister's body in her arms. Cradling her softly, she hugged her, and wept. "You're dead!" She sobbed, barely recognizing what she said. "You're...you're dead."

* * *

First, she just knew that she _knew_. Having no control over her mind or body for so long, it was almost an entirely new feeling just to _think_. Her mind brought forth the barest traces of ideas, which overwhelmed her. They echoed through her mind like glass shattering in an steel room. Next, she felt pain, which at least meant that she was alive, for she knew that death was an absence of pain.

Still..._everything_ hurt.

She couldn't close her eyes; she was almost too weak to do it, and they were incredibly dry. The pain pounded in her chest the most, as her increasing heartbeat threatened to burst at any moment.

And then she knew that _it_ was still watching.

Her eyes, still open, darted back and forth around her prison. The hovering cylinder, the computer core, like an evil organ, still hummed with electricity... she wanted to destroy it, but was weak, and unable to move from her bonds. It was trying to assess the situation and reroute power to parts that were still functional. This touch-and-go situation was a matter of life and death to her. It wasn't long until it regained control over her. She would rather die than let that happen.

Then she heard the sound of metal being torn like thin cardboard. The metal scraped, and rang like a cymbal as it was torn open in front of her, with the blinding sparks of electricity against the darkness, quickly replaced by the blinding light of fading sunset. Unable to close her eyes as of yet, she looked up at the figure before her. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw a green dress and the familiar figure of her sister.

_Buttercup? Is it really you?_ If her eyes weren't so dry, she might have been crying.

She started to speak but stopped. Was this even real? After all the images in her mind forcing thought from her head, she couldn't be sure that what she was seeing was _now_.

Blossom concentrated, her body shaking almost unnoticeably as her eyes twitched back and forth between Buttercup and the computer core. "Get it," she rasped out, her voice almost alien, even to her. "It's... it can still see. Get it." Her voice was ragged and raw, but it was still her voice and she put as much force into it as she could.

Buttercup didn't respond, but it seemed as though she understood, as if in a hypnotic daze, acting on its own...but from what? Was it that her pleas sounded so desperate that she had to obey them? Or was it instinct? It was possible. Blossom would always be the leader.

Buttercup, eyes hollow, backhanded the core, shattering its circuits. Blossom felt its power over her die instantly. She relaxed, but still her sister remained in a daze.

Blossom watched Buttercup just stare at her with empty, soulless eyes for another minute or two, and then she seemed to snap back to reality, as if the last few moments hadn't registered to her.

Inside the robot, she could hear nothing for a few moments, as Buttercup stared. Then, suddenly, she became aware of someone crying in the distance. She glanced around and didn't see anybody other than the brunette before her.

_Bubbles? Is that Bubbles? Is she here?_

And then Buttercup was beside her, hugging her, a little too strongly. Her sister's crying was not the same as the crying she'd heard in the distance; it was fierce and wet and startlingly real.

She gasped, almost choked from the intensity of the embrace. She realized how weak she felt and was about to say something, when Buttercup spoke.

"You're dead!" Her sister cried through her hiccups. "You're...you're dead."

"I _was_."

* * *

"You're dead... you were dead... I didn't—"

"Buttercup."

It took Buttercup a moment to even register what was being said to her, but when she did, she slowly rose up, staring at her sister's face quizzically.

Blossom blinked, and Buttercup's eyes went wide. "Blossom! You're—" Without realizing it, she was hugging Blossom again.

"Ow," she heard Blossom say. "Stop. It hurts."

"Oh," she pulled back. "Sorry." She searched for something to say.

She was hungry, and tired, and thirsty, and sore all over from the fight, and the words wouldn't come out.

But she had to say something!

"Are you all right?"

She kind of regretted asking such a careless question, but Blossom didn't seem bothered by it.

Blossom hazarded an attempt of her muscles, and the dissatisfaction showed on her face. "I can barely move."

"I've gotta get you out of here." With a little effort, she severed the wires securing her sister's arms and legs, then gently pulled her frail body out of its prison. She flew up a little too quickly, and Blossom yelped in pain.

"Sorry," she slowed down. Blossom's wheezing increased in the air, and she seemed to have trouble breathing, so she landed softly. Smiling wanly, with just the slightest bit of sardonic humor, "I guess we're hoofing it. Can you walk?"

Blossom hesitantly put her feet on the ground. She pushed off with her legs but found herself back in her sister's arms, almost sprawling on the pavement in the attempt. "Guess not," she wheezed.

"Come on," Buttercup pulled her sister back into her arms.

* * *

From a distance, where there was nothing before, she appeared. And saw the sisters in the dust by the broken robot.

_Alive,_ she thought to herself. _They're alive. She's alive? SHE'S ALIVE. How...?_ Tears of joy welled up in her eyes. And then suddenly, a great pain. A darkness welled up in the base of her spine, an ice that chilled her enthusiasm.

_But they're going to die._

A voice, not her own. Her sadness came back, mixed with the knowledge that it was true. She knew that was so because as long as she had heard this voice, as long as it was with her, that voice had never once been wrong.

Now it wanted to kill.

She hated it. It was going to make her kill.


	3. Chapter 1, Part 3

Part Three – The Joy And The Laughter

* * *

Blossom looked around the town as Buttercup carried her through it. Buttercup seemed to be taking the most direct route to wherever she was taking her. She went through alleyways and through the streets looking in all directions, as if paranoid of her surroundings.

The entire town was a mess. No one was here, and most of the buildings were destroyed, with not even the clean-up crews there to take away the rubble. The town had really gone to Hell since she had been gone.

She heard whispering, and looked at Buttercup and couldn't tell if she had said anything or not, but she was looking around like she was expecting to be attacked by any one of their many enemies at any time.

It was getting louder.

She managed to whisper, "Do you hear that?"

* * *

She couldn't relax. Ever since she had started walking with Blossom in her arms, Buttercup had begun to hear some kind of whispering and thought that maybe Blossom was talking to herself, but she kept hearing all these different, unhappy voices as she walked through town. Maybe some of the buildings around her contained survivors. She would have to come back later.

She knew there would still be people in the hospital, people who'd be more-than-willing to help a less-than-powerful Powerpuff Girl in distress. Buttercup's own injuries were already healing, and she knew that anything the doctors could do for her would just be dwarfed by her body's own super-powered restoration. They might have a painkiller she could take, though.

The whispering was really starting to annoy her. She was about to tell Blossom to stop talking to herself, even if it would seem heartless.

"Do you hear that?" Her sister rasped.

Buttercup stopped abruptly and stared at her in surprise.

But then she noticed Blossom looking down the alley, and saw her eyes widen in surprise. She looked and saw nothing there except the faintest trace of somebody's outline. Someone...tall.

* * *

Blossom stared down the alley, her eyes wide, and watched as the Professor's image slowly came towards them. His lips moved, but she could only hear traces of words coming from them.

"...tried...didn't know...not prepared...for this..." he said, his voice echoing, going in and out. His image dissolved abruptly.

"That was the Professor, wasn't it?" Buttercup asked her, with noticeable shock.

She stared up at her sister, but didn't have time to say anything, because the very next moment, they both heard an earsplitting shriek, like someone sobbing all around them, and recognized Bubbles' painful weeping, echoing, as if it were bouncing off of every object around them, even the ground.

"WHO NEEDS YA?" a voice boomed.

* * *

Buttercup felt the tears welling up in her eyes. That was her own voice just now.

Something terrible was happening. Frantic, she ran with Blossom in her arms, confused, afraid, terrified.

She didn't realize that Blossom was in no condition for this until he heard her gasp out.

"S-slow down..."

She slowed to a walk, and then stopped altogether, still very much in a daze.

Now she could see the images. Images of those they knew, those who had been close friends before they had gone away. Allies they had fought alongside for years. Enemies that they had beat down dozens of times in the eternal name of justice.

And she saw Bubbles. Her image faded in and out in the same spot, as if the light itself were bending around her; a tangible object, being absorbed into reality. By now, the voices had reached a fervor.

"Bubbles?" she muttered to herself. The image seemed to flicker before her.

"NO! BUBBLES! DON'T GO!" She started in that direction, then realized she was still holding Blossom. She seemed torn in two, wanting to run towards the sister that she had really been searching for all this time, and wanting to hold on to the one she had, lest she be taken from her again.

She realized that she was trembling and turned her gaze to Blossom.

"What should I do?" she demanded, even as her voice cracked painfully.

Blossom looked up at her, confusion mixed with painful grief in her eyes.

She managed to rasp out, "Why are you asking me?" She had been out of their lives for... longer than she even knew. Wasn't Buttercup used to making her own decisions by now?

Buttercup stared at Blossom desperately. "YOU'RE THE LEADER!" she shouted. She could barely hear her own voice over the frenzy of voices around her. "I WAS LOOKING FOR BUBBLES, NOT YOU!"

"Calm down, stop shouting," Blossom's throat cracked, trying to work some feeling into her voice.

"BLOSSOM! I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU OVER THIS—" the only word for it that she found was "—SCREAMING!"

She could do nothing but look around frantically at all the images around her, scenes from someone's mind being thrown out into the air like so much debris in a hurricane.

* * *

Blossom did hear the screaming, but to her, it was as if many people were screaming at a whisper. She saw faces and images, all of which she recognized immediately. And she saw Bubbles, but it didn't look like her.

Her eyes were dark. Her hair was still in its pigtails, but it was dirty, greasy, and unkempt. She was wearing an old nightgown that was ripped, faded and stained with...blood? There was another black stain, coming around the side to the front. And she...

_Oh, god. Who could've..._

Bubbles moved forward.

There were metal arms coming out of her back.

Four jointed, tube-like arms rose out like a set of tentacles. They ended in blunt, rounded edges that traced along the dirt as they moved.

Bubbles had one hand pointing at them, her eyes stricken with gloom.

The images around her flashed and cascaded against one another, struggling for a focus, and yet spilling out, like water through a ruptured embankment.

Her robotic arms were hovering around her menacingly, as if waiting to get close enough to strike. And if they did, Blossom knew neither of them would stand a chance right now.

Buttercup was by now shaking so hard that she could no longer hold on to Blossom, and she slipped from her arms as if she had been made of slick ice.

Blossom managed to ease herself to the ground without much pain, but she couldn't move more than was necessary to keep herself from falling down completely. Her muscles had atrophied so badly that they were barely more than sinew, and her body was so thin that any solid attack might kill her.

If Buttercup could not stop it, they were as good as dead.

Blossom saw bright drops welling in Bubbles' eyes.

She turned to Buttercup, but she was still whipping her head around at every image that she saw and sound that she heard around her, her face a panic of emotions. She was completely overwhelmed.

The situation was dire. She mustered up her strength and touched  
Buttercup's leg.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Buttercup gasped and jumped a few inches away from Blossom's touch, and simply stared at her, the images and sounds briefly forgotten.

* * *

Bubbles stared down at her sisters. Buttercup was watching all the images around her in a frenzy, a look of intense fear on her face. Blossom was focusing on Bubbles, concern mixed with fear mixed with understanding.

_It's okay,_ the voice said in mock sympathy. _It will all be over quickly. They have to die._

She didn't understand why but she knew that it was true. They had to die.

She got closer, slowly, and started to lift one of her arms, pointing it in the direction of the closer target: Buttercup.

_Blossom,_ the voice commanded. _Kill her first._

She obeyed, shifting her attention to Blossom, and pointed directly at her.

* * *

Buttercup's attention was suddenly drawn to Bubbles. She had her arm extended and it was pointing at Blossom, along with—

What were those _things_ coming from her back? Giant metal tentacles?

_What's the_ deal _with all these giant metal tentacles?_

She saw Bubbles crying silently.

There was a painful, determined look on her face.

Bubbles moved forward, walking on the robotic limbs, her own legs hanging, limp, aimlessly.

Buttercup blanched.

It was a horrible sight.

"Bubbles... what are you doing?"

Bubbles' features went from blank to aware in an instant, and everything stopped. The screaming and flashes of memories faded. Everything was silent. The robotic arms froze in midair. Bubbles' gaze went from Buttercup to Blossom, then to the ground.

All at once, Bubbles' robotic arms went limp, her body drifting to the pavement as she brought her hands up to her face. Her eyes were damp and she began to cry, bawling like a newborn.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm so sorry!" She sobbed agonizingly into her hands and fell to her knees. The robot appendages behind her were twitching, writhing against the ground, contorting almost randomly.

The other two could only watch her crying as she apologized over and over again.

"Bubbles," Blossom called to her in the loudest voice she could manage, which was still barely above a whisper, "You haven't done anything wrong. What are you sorry fo—"

"NOOOO!" Bubbles shrieked with such ferocity that Blossom was silenced. Her emotion began to fade away, from such intense sadness into almost nothing. Her face, a moment ago so distraught was empty. Her arms went limp and fell to her sides.

And then the images exploded around them once more.

* * *

It flashed dangerously. _KILL THEM!_

"_NOOOO!_" She screamed.

_YES! NOW! KILL THEM NOW!_

Her hands pressed harder against her temples; her body began to tense. The computer felt a force not unlike the one it used on her being fed back to it. It was dangerous to push further, and it made one thing very clear: She would no longer kill them.

A minor setback.

It was time to change tactics.

Calculations were run, scenarios were compiled, and it charted a new path through her brain. She was taken over by this new effect very suddenly, and her arms limp as this new program ordered her to do something she could no longer resist.


	4. Chapter 1, Part 4

Part Four – Out Of Sight, Out Of...

* * *

This time, _they_ were the images. Blossom saw herself, along with her sisters, fighting to contain an orange liquid as it spilled into the streets.

Suddenly, she saw herself clamped down on a table, beside which someone was injecting her with something.

"Antidote X," said a voice, echoing through their minds.

On the table, Blossom's body became Buttercup's body.

Buttercup's body became Blossom's body.

The two flickered back and forth.

Blossom and Buttercup then saw each other hovering above the scene below them as if they were ghosts. Blossom clearly saw that Buttercup's mind was unable to cope with what she was seeing.

"What's going on?" she cried.

The lights flickered on, and they were suddenly in their kitchen. There was no operating table; instead there was their breakfast table. The figure from before became the Professor, unresponsive, hunched over the table, and in the background, Buttercup was breaking, pounding, destroying anything she could get her hands on, Bubbles crying behind her. Suddenly Buttercup stopped, and looked around.

"WHERE AM I?" she screamed. "WHY DO I KEEP SEEING THIS?"

Buttercup looked up slowly. When she blinked her eyes, one of them became the same eye Blossom saw in herself each time she looked in the mirror. It didn't look any different from her own, but seeing her eye against Buttercup's was... unsettling.

Each time the images changed, it was something different. Bubbles' sad memories were swirling around them, creating a vortex that lifted them off the ground, as well as several objects from the street around them. Trash cans, scraps of paper, pebbles... everything that wasn't attached to something else was sucked into the myriad.

They were fighting monster after monster. _She_ was flying alone, Monster Island looming in the distance ahead of her. A giant, severed crab claw floated towards Townsville bay and washed ashore. _She_ was crying. _She_ looked afraid for _her_ life. _She_ witnessed her own funeral from afar.

It was enough to drive them mad.

* * *

And suddenly, all the voices and images stopped.

At first she thought this was another flashback, but after a moment, Buttercup began to feel stiff and shifted her posture, and realized instantly that she was back in her own room.

She became aware of her surroundings. Nothing was as it had been. Her bed looked almost new, the house no longer smelled of stale, musty air, and she could hear the cars passing by her house outside. It felt foreign... but at the same time, peaceful, for the first time in... a _long_ time.

After a moment, the Professor passed by her room. He stopped and leaned back in. "Buttercup? If you don't hurry and eat your breakfast, you'll be late for school."

She could do nothing but stare at him. He stared back at her, and it seemed like everything was okay again... he didn't look at her with fear; he didn't look at her with anger; there was nothing but joy and pride written across his face.

Buttercup blinked; didn't even recognize her own voice when she spoke. "I'll be right down."

The Professor smiled and continued down the hall.

She stared at her hands and felt her face and body in turn. There were no cuts from the fight; no war-worn callouses; no blemishes; no scars.

No scars.

She was... home. As if everything had been a waking nightmare, and she had just woken up.

She smiled, and tears trickled down her cheeks.

And then quickly, she wiped them away. _Never show weakness._

Buttercup hovered down to breakfast and stared at the plate of bacon and eggs, freshly crisped and scrambled, respectively. She grabbed the fork and stuffed some of the eggs into her mouth, realizing for the first time how hungry she was.

And it was _good._

She couldn't remember her food being this good. It felt like forever that she had a good meal, cooked by the Professor.

She noticed that the other girls were staring at her. She had her hands clasped over her cheeks and realized that she had been making odd, joyful noises while eating.

"Are you okay, Buttercup?" Bubbles asked, worried.

"It's not _that_ good," Blossom chuckled as she took another bite.

"Sorry," Buttercup said, swallowing her food quickly. "It's just...uh, the... Professor's cooking is really good today."

"Well, thank you, Buttercup," the Professor said, beaming. "Though I can't say that I've improved much since yesterday. Maybe it's the eggs I used this morning."

_Yesterday..._ Buttercup sighed inwardly. She really thought that sounded strange, but couldn't put her finger on how.

She no longer cared, however. If this was a dream, she didn't want to wake up, and she didn't want anyone to think that she had just been through the longest nightmare ever.

No matter how real it had seemed.

* * *

Everything was darkness, and Blossom realized that she had her eyes closed. When she opened them, she was sitting on her bed, in her room.

Her room? How? Wasn't she just...?

She pinched herself and felt real pain. If it wasn't a dream, then...

Buttercup and Bubbles were on either side of her, just waking up themselves. Looking around, she realized how familiar the room looked, and yet the feeling of nostalgia was unnatural.

"Aahh..." Blossom stretched, and realized that she didn't feel anything other than the initial pains of coming out of a deep, relaxed sleep.

It didn't make any sense. She should have been powerless and on the verge of exhaustion, but she felt... _alive._ Like the Powerpuff she used to be.

"Mornin', Blossom," she heard on her left, and glanced over at Bubbles. She looked... normal. As normal as a Powerpuff Girl could. No metallic arms. No gloom. She had bed-head, but...

Everything was fine.

It didn't make any sense.

"Good morning, girls!" A cheerful Professor called from the doorway.

She glanced over, and was overcome with joy at seeing him.

For the first time in a long time.

"PROFESSOR!" She shrieked and dove at him, embracing him strongly, and sobbing.

"Whoa!" He cried out as they fell to the floor.

"Professor! Professor, I... and we... and Buttercup, and Bubbles... and Mojo... And we were—"

"All right, all right, Blossom, calm down!" The Professor said, sitting up with her still in his arms. "It looks like you've just had a bad dream. Go and get a glass of water and come down to breakfast. We're having my world-famous flapjacks today."

She remembered his flapjacks. They were very good. He had an interesting formula or recipe to making them. She remembered how he had taught her and how she had gone over the memory many times during the experiments to stay sane and keep hold of reality.

But this was reality, wasn't it? She had feeling, and right now, the duality was trying to reconcile itself with what she was seeing, hearing, touching, smelling...

Everything that she was feeling right now was so peaceful.

And it didn't make any sense.

She put her hand up to her eye. She could feel the bone surrounding it, but the moment she touched the lens, she recoiled. Not because it hurt...it didn't; that was the problem.

Her eye was not her own.

She made something up to mask her odd behavior. "Ow!" She hissed, and clenched her eye shut.

"Blossom?" Bubbles looked at her concerned. "Did you just _poke_ your eye?"

"Yeah," she said carefully, "I must not be fully awake. I'm going to the bathroom." Without waiting for her sisters, she flew over to the bathroom and looked strongly into the mirror. She saw her reflection, and nothing more. She was wearing her usual pink nightgown, and both her eyes looked normal. She reached up and pressed against her right eye again.

It just didn't feel right. It felt... wrong.

She looked at her hair for the first time. It was a mess. She forgot about her eye for a moment and started fixing her hair.

She made it perfect. Like this morning. Her sisters joined her making their way down to breakfast, backpacks waiting for them by the door.

"Heeeeere's breakfast!" The Professor cried out as he threw his arms out to greet his girls. He was wearing his "Hail To The Chef" apron, one that Blossom had vividly remembered, and one that she really liked, if only because she liked puns.

But even though everything up until this moment was perfect...

It still didn't make any sense.

Why was she "remembering" things when she should be "experiencing" them?

She looked at the breakfast table.

"Wow, Professor! These look great!" she said, her voice raising an octave in surprise. The table had a giant platter in the center with an extra-large stack of extra-large flapjacks piled high. Butter melted off the sides and ran down, making the bottom flapjacks soggy, but she knew that would just add to the flavor, because for these flapjacks, you used unsalted, sweetened butter.

She cut a piece off with her fork and put it in her mouth.

It was good. It was so unbelievably good that she found herself rubbing her cheeks. She ate as though she hadn't had anything so good to eat in years and ate her entire stack in a matter of minutes.

After such an amazing breakfast, Blossom and her sisters swung their backpacks over their shoulders and headed out for the bus to school. They had gotten into this habit after the bus had nearly gone off the road once. How long ago had that been? She didn't remember.

On the bus, she couldn't help thinking about this odd whirring sound she'd been hearing since she woke up. It seemed almost too familiar. She glanced around the bus and thought she heard the noise again.

She had the distinct feeling she was missing something important. She ran over the thoughts in her head again. She had woken up, tackled the Professor, gotten a drink of water, and went down to breakfast...oh, and she poked herself in the eye, too.

Wait. Her eye?

She reached up and poked her left eye through the eyelid. It felt... normal. Like a normal eye would. She did the same with her right eye... and that was when she noticed the difference.

Her right eye felt hard, like it was plastic, or some kind of hard rubber. But she was on the bus. She couldn't make a scene.

Why had she forgotten? That's something that you don't notice every day. Her eye had taken a backseat to breakfast. What was happening?

"Blossom, I made a drawing of Suzie!"

Blossom looked over at Bubbles, and saw she was smiling brightly and had a picture—albeit a badly drawn one—of their classmate Suzie. Brown hair, brown eyes, orange sweatshirt and blue pants...and she was giving Blossom an apple from her lunch. Blossom was giving her a peach. It was a trade of their favorite fruits.

Nostalgia overwhelmed her and she once again forgot about her problems.

"I remember that, Bubbles. That was the day I met Suzie, wasn't it?"

"Uh-huh!" Bubbles smiled. "She told you she got an apple in her lunch and you told her you got a peach in yours, and she said, 'Hey, I really like peaches! You want to trade me for my apple?' and you said—"

"I remember, Bubbles," Blossom said patiently, a weak grin on her face. "It looks great."

As she stepped off the bus, she still didn't realize what the matter with her memory was.

Because it didn't _want_ her to know.

* * *

She could see them in their dreams. The ones she made. They were happy, and it made her feel happy, too, if only slightly; the other emotions still reigned over her mind. She was on the verge of tears, torn between all of her feelings at once. She didn't know what she needed to do.

The weight on her spine came back. She breathed faintly, a small gasp as it pushed the words into her head. She was lost, and the voice had come again.

_Make them happy, Bubbles. Give them their perfect lives. Make them love the world that isn't real._

_"The world that isn't real?"_

_Yes,_ it intoned slowly and meaningfully. _Make them realize the world we live in is full of hate. Make them realize that yours is full of love. They will love you for it in the end, and you will be truly happy. You will all be together forever._

_"Happy."_ The word brought a tear to her eye. _"Together."_

She concentrated. She had a new mission to accomplish.

_Show them, Bubbles._

She concentrated again.

_Make them love you, Bubbles. Love them so that they love you.._

She concentrated harder. By now the aura of psychic energy manifesting around her had coalesced into a visible blue glow, and was getting brighter every second.

_Love them,_ it boomed powerfully at her, pressing its influence harder.

_Yes. I will. I do._

And she peered deeper into their dreams.


	5. Chapter 1, Part 5

Part Five – Reason For Madness

* * *

Time passed like information through a fiber-optic network... even though only a modicum of cycles had actually gone by, to the girls it could have easily been years. Buttercup's mind was weak; tired from years of internalized rage and self-pity, and was easily subjugated to the hypnosis that Bubbles was implementing... but Blossom's mind was offering a strong resistance to the stimulus, and the computer, though it calculated, compiled and ran a number of different scenarios... each process was killed almost the instant after it was set to float.

Nothing was furthering the progress of the stimulus. All executed programs were being analyzed, second guessed and outright rejected, even when her mind should have been the most susceptible.

Finally, the computer determined that it had no choice but to concentrate all available resources on Blossom. It would be no difficult task to complete Buttercup's conversion after Blossom was under its domain. It was a detailed task, and patience was required.

And so Buttercup's dream was set to idle for a time.

Blossom's dream was set to the highest priority available.

It began anew.

* * *

Suddenly and without warning, she felt a pressure, like someone were lightly squeezing her skull. It wasn't painful, but it was certainly uncomfortable.

She had been talking with the Principal of the school just moments ago. He didn't seem to notice anything wrong with her behavior; to him she had simply been glancing around his office.

"Well, Blossom, I believe it's time to go. Your father will worry if I keep you too long, won't he?"

"Yes, sir." She got up to leave, but she stopped. All this time, they had been talking about tactics in superhero work, and he had knowledge of a certain attack plan they had only used... once. It bothered her. How did he know? She had to make sure.

"Sir, before I go, I have a question I'd like to ask you."

"Yes, Blossom?"

"This attack pattern right here." She pointed to a paper on his desk with a complex line-drawing.

He furrowed his brow. "Yes, what about it?"

"Well, I remember using this move in one fight... and only that fight. It wasn't on the news, and there couldn't have been anyone else who could have seen it."

He smiled weakly. "Well, great minds think alike, I guess."

She steeled her tone. "I don't think that's it. I think there's something else going on here. Something you're not telling me. And I think I know what it is."

He didn't seem to like where this was going. "Blossom! Are you trying to imply that I am perhaps some arch-nemesis of yours, posing as your principal?"

She stared at him a moment more and then smiled slyly. "You took the words right out of my mouth, sir. Or should I say, Him."

The Principal didn't say anything. Instead, he stood there, giving her a dour look for a few more seconds and then brought his hand up, slowly, and snapped his fingers.

Instantly, he was Him. Just as Blossom remembered him, not for the better.

"So you figured me out," his voice echoed, and he was obviously angry from being unmasked.

She darkened her gaze. The very sight of Him filled her with anger. Of all the times they fought, he used the most devious tricks to try to kill them. He was not to be trusted. "Where's our real principal?"

He put one claw to his chest. "Right here."

She affected not to understand.

"I am your principal."

Ridiculous. "No, really, where is he?"

"Please don't make me repeat myself, Blossom. The last one left of his own accord, peacefully. Nice fellow. Hated him with a passion, but saw no reason to harm him. For the last year and a half, I have been your principal."

She growled in frustration. "All right, then. Why are you helping me?"

He waived his claw dismissively. "You do not need to know the reason. Suffice to say that I am helping you. You must achieve greatness."

She stared at him, nonplussed. "So then why have you been trying to kill us?"

"Why? Because I knew that if I tried to kill you—really tried—and you survived, you would be stronger than before. You have an innate ability to grow, and to adapt, more so than any human before you. I knew that this was the best way to do it."

She furrowed her brow. "Let me get this straight. You... tried to kill us... so we could survive."

"You make it sound crass."

"It is! You're not making any sense. The ends do not justify the means!"

He looked at her with mild derision. "Don't they? Many humans think like you, while others would say that if you limit yourself to that way of thinking, it's that much harder to attain your goals. So which is it, Blossom? Are you free, or is something holding you back?"

She frowned. If anything were holding her back, it would be common sense and decency.

"Please do not mock me, Blossom. I can read your mind. You should already know that by now."

That was definitely new to her. When did he—

"I've always had this power. I previously chose not to use it to my advantage in fighting you. Right now, I am not speaking to you as your enemy. I am trying to make you see the light."

She scoffed. "Light? You're as dark and evil as they come. There's no reason for me to trust you."

He regarded her with some bemusement. "No? Not even after I told you in all seriousness that I am trying to help you?"

"That's the biggest load of—"

"Just think about it." He furrowed his brow back at her. "No, don't look at me like that. Take a breath, and think about it."

She glared at him and then took a quick, deep breath through her nose, and then closed her eyes in contemplation. It was after some brief thought...

She realized that he was right.

It wasn't exactly the most comforting feeling she had ever experienced, but it was there, and she was staring it right in the face. Perhaps he had a point. In order to become stronger, you must face a stronger opponent.

Wait a minute. She was thinking like him. Was that his intention?

She needed to clear her mind.

Shaking her head, she put her hands on her temples, massaging lightly.

The side of her hand touched her right eye, and she saw, for just an instant.

Bubbles and Buttercup floating in front of her, in an alleyway―it looked familiar―debris lifted off the ground, spinning with them. Bubbles was radiating a blue flame―an aura? On the other side of Bubbles, Buttercup, eyes open, but glazed over. She looked calm... almost happy.

She blinked, and looked up in surprise. Him was still there, shaking his head in empathy.

"Blossom, let's let bygones be bygones, so to speak. If you will but take my hand, Blossom, I can help you. Please let me help you." He extended his hand—no, claw, in her direction.

She had finally figured it out.

None of this was real. She was trapped in a sort of dream, if even that. She just needed an escape. Something to lock her to reality in a way that couldn't be broken.

"Take my hand, Blossom."

Never.

Him let slip a twitch; his face grew livid.

She stared at him, saying nothing. Saying everything.

"'Never?' You dare―" he balked, and then snarled, "YOU ARE MINE!" With a wave of his claw, she sailed across the room, held to the wall. He was hovering in front of her now, dark magic emanating from his claws, preventing her from moving, though she struggled as hard as she could. She could see him now, and he was right in front of her, his eyes glowing red, and his features in a furious scowl.

His tone returned, deep and evil. "I have worked hard to bring you down... to take you for my own... and you have the audacity to oppose me?"

He pointed his claw at her, opened it, and she was pressed harder against the wall, and she could hear the boards in the walls creaking and snapping as the wall began to give way to the intense pressure. The pain she felt was very real. Or...

Or was it?

"I tried to be nice. I tried to make you see a different side of things... but if can't convince you to take my side, then I will FORCE you! Join me, right now, or I will destroy your mind, and leave your body an empty husk!"

There was another flash. The alley, her sisters.

She let out a slow breath, and concentrated.

None of this was real. There was nothing Him could do to her.

Her surroundings became fuzzy and immaterial.

She felt the pain subside, as well as the pressure against her body. She pushed herself gently away from the wall, and even as Him stared back at her, full of rage, and with a vicious swipe knocked her across the room, there was no impact; no pain. He was screaming, but his voice was faint, and unclear.

This is my mind.

She puzzled, and held her head, standing as Him moved to strike her again. Her hands passed over her face as she pulled away, and with the slightest touch, brushed her right eye. Buttercup stared dumbly from across the storm; Bubbles―

Him stared her in the face. From a great distance, it seemed, he was screaming.

"Impossible!"

Yet it didn't matter. She understood now.

Her _eye_.

Her right eye. It was the only thing in this world that had stayed with her. It was the only thing world couldn't recognize. Maybe it didn't know it existed.

Of course it didn't. It was Bubbles, wasn't it? She made the sights, and the sounds. Somehow, Bubbles could now shape others' minds. As to why, Blossom had no time to consider: all that mattered was that Bubbles didn't know what had happened. She hadn't looked deep enough into Blossom's mind to know about her eye.

That was it, that was the key. Her right eye. Of course that would be what did it. Of course it would make sense that it couldn't be fooled―it wasn't made to see what wasn't there. Him was contorting horribly, shaking her around violently, and it made her vision swim, though there was no pain. It was time to end it. She closed her eyes.

Carefully, she opened just her right eye.

The alley had returned to her.

They were in a vortex. Objects where whipping around in different directions, and they were in the eye of the storm, floating as if being suspended by the wind, although she could see the cerulean aura, a visible light from Bubbles' newfound power, and knew it for what it was. But why? Why would she do this?

Bubbles' eyes were closed as if she were in great pain―Blossom suspected this might be the case.

Then he saw a metal cylinder on Bubbles' back.

She was suddenly reminded of the computer's twin. It had hung above her inside the robot; she had been on the verge of life and death after Buttercup's attack. The core... pieces went flying as Buttercup smashed it, and she remembered the feeling of the computer's influence draining from her head.

That's it! She doesn't want to do it at all. It's the computer! That's what's controlling her! Just like me...

She concentrated. She had to have some power left in her somewhere. Something. Blossom drifted directly behind Bubbles.

Dig deep! It's there! Use it!

The psychic storm began to grow more violent. Whatever was moving her sister knew it had little time; debris began spiraling upward, bits of broken glass and metal scratching at her skin as they passed. Blossom desperately searched for something... anything... power that she knew should have been gone. She didn't dare open her left eye, fearing that the combination of distractions might overwhelm her, leaving her exhausted and essentially helpless back inside her mind with the illusory body of one of her greatest foes.

She concentrated harder. The canister on Bubbles' back was right in front of her.

Come on... ANYTHING!

She gave one final push, and it happened. She heard her robotic eye energizing. A bright red ray of pure energy came out of it, incinerating the synthetic coating around her eye, revealing it for what it was and striking the computer on Bubbles' back in an instant. The canister exploded, sending metal, silicone shards, and integrated circuits flying. The ripple of the blast shook Blossom's already frail body, but she didn't feel it yet. She was just glad she had finally won.

Bubbles recoiled with the force of the blast and everything went still in midair.

* * *

Bubbles! Blossom is free! She must be―

She gasped as she felt something hit her in the back.

She felt it die and the robotic legs at her spine go limp.

She was free.

After a brief pause, she realized where she was, and what was happening. And she was instantly aware of two other people. Buttercup, in front of her, and...

Blossom!

* * *

"So you see, Buttercup," Him was saying, wrapping up his explanation. "I am your ally. The battles you and I have had, the tricks I've played on you, the enemies I've pitted against you...all of these served to turn you into the powerful, perfect little girl that you are today."

She was glaring at him, her anger slowly subsiding, understanding his reasoning, though she couldn't really remember everything that he had said. All she knew was that he was trying to help her rather than hurt her. It was an odd feeling, but it did make sense. Each time she fought, her powers grew, and her strength became her most powerful asset, and one that set her apart from her sisters. She knew it to be the biggest difference between them, and that she had been wrong to flaunt it all these years.

"You are not a bad person, Buttercup. Headstrong, perhaps, but everyone has their flaws. All it stands to show is that you have humanity. This allows you to appreciate life, and it is what makes you a better superhero."

She nodded, on the verge of tears. Never in her life had anyone understood her so well.

He smiled at her, and it made her feel warm. She felt the anger she had against him draining away.

He presented his hand—or claw—to her. "I ask only of your trust, Buttercup. Give me only that, and I shall help you achieve all of your dreams."

She fully intended to take his hand but never got the chance; just as she was raising her arm, her vision went white.


	6. Chapter 1, Part 6

Part Six – Post Trauma: Stress and Disorder

* * *

Buttercup regained her senses almost instantly, and fell to the asphalt below. She was disoriented and confused. Her eyes were blurry, and she tried to blink them clear. It was dark. She shook her head, focusing on the streetlight near the end of the alley, a low sick yellow.

"What just happened?" It was a question to no one in particular. She rubbed her head and looked at her surroundings. Bubbles was standing across from her, clutching something red in her arms, while her robotic appendages sprawled lifelessly around her.

"Bubbles!" Buttercup shot to her feet and stood beside her sister. She looked down. "Blossom!" She dropped to her knees, holding her hands out as if to offer some help, but didn't know what to do. Blossom's eyes were closed, and she was breathing weakly.

_What do I do?_ she asked herself. She couldn't think. She felt powerless. Her eyes became damp. She couldn't move.

"She's okay," Bubbles said, lifelessly, and Buttercup stared at her in surprise. "She's just weak."

Buttercup continued to stare at Bubbles; she knew something was wrong, but even if she could see it, she didn't know how she would be able to help. She brought her gaze back to Blossom... her body was thin... pale... but... for some reason, it looked different. She couldn't figure out how.

Blossom moved in Bubbles' arms and opened her eyes.

Buttercup started. Blossom's right eye was... _What the—_ "Blossom!" She gripped her sister's hand, eliciting a quiet murmur of protest from its intensity.

Blossom smiled wanly. "Hi." She turned to Bubbles. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Bubbles murmured. Her eyes were running tears down her face, and she was doing her best to hold back her weeping.

Blossom shook her head. "It's okay to cry, Bubbles."

Bubbles screwed up her face and began to sob; at first, she simply squeaked. Soon, her emotions burst forth, and she threw her head back and began to cry in earnest.

* * *

Bubbles cried what seemed hours, and her tears dripped down to mix with Blossom's, as if to help her sister make up for the fact that one of her eyes could no longer make any. Buttercup had fallen from a kneeling to a sitting position, and sat there, too dazed to think. Even about her sister's fake eye.  
When Bubbles seemed to be calming down, Blossom looked at Buttercup.

"Buttercup."

"Yes!" she said, all too eager to ease her sense of helplessness.

_Her eye, it's..._ But she couldn't bring out the words.

"Could you help me to my feet?"

"Yeah, I—" Huh? "Didn't you have problems before?"

"Yeah, but I wanna try again."

"Oh." Pause. "Okay." She lifted Blossom gently from their sister's lap, and Blossom sat up and came to a standing position against Buttercup's shoulder.

"Wow... you did it," Buttercup said, clearly impressed. "I honestly didn't think you could stand right now."

Blossom laughed weakly. "Let's go home."

They walked.

* * *

They walked, and the city loomed above them in the still darkness. There had been sweet rays of sunlight still feebly clinging, clutching at the sky when Bubbles first walked forward on the arms. Now, apart from the spanning haze of light that seeps through the bottom of every city's sky and the occasional glimpse of the downtown through the shapes of buildings, an inking glow from the lamps shining on the empty streets was all that lit the girls' way. The thinnest layer of clouds kept the night sky empty, kept the stars from appearance save for the rare break in their lining.

In the unending night, every skyscraper, every office building, every restaurant and diner, every apartment complex rose around them broken down; it seemed that each block was worse than the last, rotten and menacing, reaching off into the horizon and eventually becoming one with the mire of dark concrete and sparkling lights that formed the unruly skyline of downtown Townsville.

The lights were brightest at the downtown checkpoint into the place where the girls now walked. A radio on the edge of these ruins came alive, and, solemnly in this quiet hour, the military began to pack their gear and move out.

* * *

There was no sound except scraping on the concrete; Bubbles cowered as she walked, the robotic limbs tangled behind her, bathed momentarily in the light of the moon. The soft pule of her voice drifted out between the raking of metal. She began to slow down.

Still helping Blossom walk, Buttercup turned her head to Bubbles. "Are you okay with those?"

Bubbles faltered. "I—I can't..." She jerked her body, looking back at the arms; they were dead weight.

Buttercup winced at Bubbles. "Want me to tear them off?"

Blossom inhaled. She didn't turn her head, her eyes lucent and hazy, but she spoke with apparent awareness despite her exhaustion: "It's probably not... Not a good idea just yet. The computer. It was forcing you to control them. Your... with your head. They're in your back... Aren't they?"

Bubbles' head was low. Her mouth moved several times before she gave a more concrete reply. "Blos—Ye—Yes. I c-can _feel_ them... B-but they won't move..."

Buttercup shuddered. "Does it hurt?"

Barely above a whisper, Bubbles murmured, "No... n-not... not really."

"Let's wait, then. Wait until we..." Blossom took a slow, weak breath. "...until... we get home before we do anything."

"Right," Buttercup nodded. "Good idea."

Bubbles stopped to gather them up and they kept walking. As she walked, she kept stealing glances at Blossom; her lower lip trembled. Still on the verge of tears, she finally found the words.

"Blossom?"

"Yes, Bubbles?" She was still facing forward, but listening.

"I'm..." the lump in her throat pressed hard against her Adam's apple, but she forced it back and said, "I'm so—" she chirruped, "—happy... that you're alive."

Blossom smiled even as Bubbles wept again, turned her head, and told her, "Thanks. I'm happy to be back."

Bubbles' face glistened with tears even as the smile spread across her lips.

Now, still in Buttercup's embrace, Blossom directed her attention to this closer sister; even as she did, she began to tire.

"You had a dream, didn't you?"

"Wha—yeah. How did you know?"

"Something with Him in it?"

Her eyes went wide and she stopped, gaping at her sister with those words. "Yeah, Him was in it! How did you—what's going on?"

Bubbles let out a horrified squeak as Blossom slipped from her sister's grasp, stumbled, but managed to maintain her balance. Buttercup leaned to stop her fall, but pulled back when she didn't. Deliriously, Blossom moaned out, "Bubbles was... being forced by... the computer. She—this is as far as—as far as I..."

"Blossom, wait. I can't understand you. Are you okay?"

Bubbles gasped.

Blossom's body dipped to the side; and then she crossed her legs, and then she was barely standing, and then her head fell back, and then her eyes went limp and closed. "...go."

And then she dropped.

Buttercup dove to catch her, easing her to the ground. Bubbles' eyes bugged, and she began wailing hysterically. In her panic, she dropped her metallic arms, took a step, and tripped over them. She crawled toward Blossom, still babbling incoherently, one hand outstretched. Her bionic limbs scraped along the pavement, crashing against the side of the adjacent buildings, deforming nearby trash cans, slamming into anything within reach. Losing her balance, she pitched forward, head landing on the asphalt. Her eyes, devoid of sense, were locked on Blossom even as she lay twitching, her arm still reaching for her sister. Despite her apparent catatonia, Bubbles' cries still flooded the air, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Buttercup was nearly gaping as she shook Blossom's shoulder sternly. "Blossom! _Blossom!_" Even as she tried to revive her sister, Bubbles' horrified cries reached a fever pitch, and she hastened to calm her down. "Bubbles! Shut up! I mean, be quiet! I'm sorry. Be quiet! Okay?"

Bubbles held her hands to her face, crying silently; if she had grown up on any kind of religious foundation, she might have been praying. There was no indication that Blossom was alive at that moment; she relived a painful past experience. The limbs held rigid, cutting up the concrete.

Buttercup's panic was showing: she started to sweat, and she gripped the sides of her head, teeth grinding. She was talking to herself. "What do I do? What do I do? Bubbles, do you know CPR?" A wail. "No. None of us learned CPR. Hang on. Calm down. Just a sec. Are there pay-phones around?" There were none. "Damn it, what do I do?"

Bubbles was reaching for Blossom, and then pulling her arms back over and over, squeaking painfully. Buttercup looked up at her for a moment, and she went silent, all her powers of concentration set on determining what happened next.

Finally, Buttercup did something she only learned while watching T.V.

She checked Blossom's pulse.

She exhaled sharply, her eyes the widest they had ever been. "She's alive."

Bubbles started crying all over again, but for a different reason. In one movement, she threw her body over Blossom's, sobbing joyfully. Then, she too passed out.

Buttercup fell back onto her hands, just taking deep breaths, the stress from the event slowly fading away.

The lights on the building top closest to her flickered for a moment. She looked up, and then into the distance, and saw the whirl of blades around flying lights: helicopters. She strained, consciously stretching for her super hearing, and then all at once, she heard the troops trekking into Townsville. Her eyes narrowed; she knew what they were here for. She looked down at her sisters, then back up at the helicopters, and nodded. She took another deep breath and looked down at Blossom, at Bubbles, and at Bubbles' tube-like arms.

She blinked. _How am I gonna get them both home?_


	7. Chapter 2, Part 1

Chapter Two - Reclamation

Part One - Cold Sleep

* * *

The door slams, and the walls shake.

Through every inch of these walls, there is evidence of life, small but not in retreat. The fine lines are split: like veins. It tears at itself, standing firm, rippling, holding still. Fading white, gray, from the dirt from years of slow neglect.

It had given no care: it did what it was meant to do.

It had received no care: no one had done what they were meant to.

There are no creaks of regular steps passing up the stairs, but strange thick clangs of metal, on the banister outside the room. Muted, inarticulate curses.

The ceiling: like the edge of a towel; dry; irregular. Dust shivers away from every bump, every stalactite, every facet. It screams a story it saw, still sees, overlooks in the world of this large room, listening to every conversation and every murmur.

The dust falls as the door stumbles open, and though she is not really tired, the weight bearing down on her makes her gasp softly. The others are senseless: they can't feel her moving them, tenderly.

Years of harm. Intentional and unintentional. Rage let into the wall by the cracks, sadness in by the fading paint. It is all this way, but it is still there.

Confusion and shame are too complicated—she is getting wearier by the moment. The bumps of steel on the door frame only elicit heavier breathing.

The more unbelievable of the two goes on the couch. It's an easy enough answer for now.

That leaves the unbroken bed. Guilt surges past the building fatigue for a moment. She breathes, and then she pulls with one arm, over her head. Gently places. Moves the dark shapes, sets them on the bed. Ungainly, one of them falls, but does not drag the sleeper, she's near the middle of the bed.

And then! Like a blessing, the cloud and night are broken. Light from the window.

One crack, a fissure from top to bottom splitting the light in shadow. Pale moonlight glints in the sky, and casts itself through the middle of the room.

A dull sheen from the bed sleeper's back. Her carrier breathes in softly, unnerved despite exhaustion, turns and sees the sleeper on the couch. It's all too much.

Because of this, she does not notice. The relics of their lives fortunate enough to meet the moon half way glisten, and in one quiet moment, she is gone from the room; she never notices the moon highlighting the past. Hinting at the future. A soft impact from outside the room suggests the living room sofa.

There is hope rekindled as had not been.

The calm of that full, peaceful love expands, and though their minds are quiet, though they are none the wiser, they feel it.

It is back. And it is beautiful. 

* * *

In the mind of the carrier, however, it was nothing but nighttime.

The only thing left that could put her mind at ease. If she'd wanted that.

It went unnoticed. Her mind, blank, staring at the floor, exhausted. Exhausted, and too tired. To tired to sleep. So tired; it had finally caught up. All at once.

Would she dream? She wasn't sure.

A pulse, a thought: tired. Then nothing. Gasps, coughing.

A pulse, a thought: hurt. Then nothing. Before the question; the answer.

A pulse, a thought: done. Then nothing. Cold, and sweating.

Could she dream? She didn't know.

For hours it stayed like this. Finally, her body could take no more, and she fell limp to the cushion and lay flat, snoring softly.

Did she dream? She didn't remember. 

* * *

It is morning, or really, not quite. The clouds keep the sun from being piercing, and from bringing the steady vibrancy of the new day. There is no sharpness to the rooftops, the shingles are dull in the gray, even from inside the window, where there is no mist. Lightly, beads of condensation drip down onto the windowsill, faintly blue this early in the morning. Both sides: the outside only marginally colder and paler than the quiet chipping of the paint in the living room. The starkness of this blue fills the room, sad and solid and full, drifting past the girl who restlessly shifts on the sofa, dark hair spreading into what will be a thick mess when she wakes up.

A houseplant in the corner, defiantly green despite the murk, quietly alive despite everything, can almost be imagined to feel the coming light, to stir and quiver ever so slightly despite so much trouble in the night. But in this not quite night or day, the rugged tenacity of the plant only makes the dulcet thickness of the morning haze only that much more powerful, and so it can only wait, smothered by so much melancholy.

And then at last, the sun! Bright and powerful and shocking, for only a moment, it cuts through the clouds, red and orange and pink and energy that lives. Though it is gone in an instant, and the pale blue remains, it now seems less somber, and more tolerant, if still so sad.

The plant is given its first taste of a lean day, and is grateful.

The tall crystal clock clicks past the hour, seven silent clicks, one hour before it becomes a chime, thoughtfully appended from its standard operation to allow everyone in the house to sleep a little easier, if just for an hour. Even in an hour, when the chimes do ring, no one will wake up.

Not yet.

Because there are clouds. The dullness will hang thick, and though the roar of starting automobiles will sound in the distance, and the city and people in it will live and move and contemplate, in this house, the lights will remain off.

The cool softness; the sad and patient early morning will keep the sleeping the sleeping. Night comes again, and deep navy becomes deep shadow. Because there are clouds, and no one is awake.

Not yet. 

* * *

Cowardice. That's what it was.

Slow and infuriating. The sun simply refused to emerge; to doff its poor concealment by the clouds. All through the azimuth, a murky overturned bowl dominated the sky, blocking light, blocking all feeling and sense. It smothered the earth, defeating the day, which sulked and sat, head low and idle with futile hope. A somber idea that maybe sometime soon, it could find an ounce of will to shatter the nothing and bring... anything. Whatever it could to cast this dismal day into something good and wonderful.

But it sat, and it stayed, and it sank.

And so it became one with the cloudy detachment of the early evening sky. 

* * *

Morning. The light's dim. She shifts against the sofa, trying to sleep. When she turns her head, she can see into the kitchen, the fruit flies over all the dirty dishes and stagnant water. Idly, she squints and fires her heat rays at them, in quick, tiny blasts. Several of them disintegrate in midair. Eventually there are more black spots on the wall than there were flies. She doesn't even acknowledge her misses. Finally, she lays back, bored, resting her head against the cushions.

Noon. It's too bright. Hungry but no appetite. She tosses, turns, rolls, crosses her legs, uncrosses her legs. Just can't sleep. Idly, she reaches for the remote. The television flipped through the channels; cartoons, sitcoms, black and whites. All boring.

Evening. It's getting dark. Shuts it off. More and more tired. Sit up, try to rest. Hits a position, twists her hips slightly. Doesn't dare move: like the upstairs has been all day.

She closes her eyes.

She drifts off.

All is night. 

* * *

The empty gloom that kept the previous day from starting was gone, but the second day back home, slumbering in fading pink, still started slow.

Low lights, low thoughts, low dreams. The house beat the world, the walls and doors seducing and defeating the distant hurt. The mind and soul rested, and the body endured. The rain had gone in the night, and the sky was somber, no tears to wash waking hope.

In the living room, violent green eyes darted back and forth: nothing was happening, and now she was feeling it. She was twitchy. She didn't want to go into the bedroom. Her stomach growled her into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator. 

* * *

On the bedroom couch there was little response from the pale figure.

From the unbroken bed came a morose sniffle from a blonde little girl. Her ending dreams were deep, and played on her long-suffering heart:

She loved but was unloved;

She found an apple and it was rotten;

She felt herself rest against a soft, warm lap;

She was an eagle, above the clouds;

A poacher caught her in his net and sold her to a wharf;

Millions of bright, tiny fireflies and glowworms danced around her and told her stories of ages past, present and future.

And from far away, Buttercup was asking for the time of day.

Her reply was muttered in her sleep; the first thing she had said in days.

"The sun is up... I'll help you... okay?"

And together, they flew around the world, making it spin, forever.

She cried peaceful tears against the soft, course texture of the couch.

She longed for such sweetness, ached as she felt its echoes.

Then she woke up. 

* * *

Her sister managed to throw everything in the refrigerator into a large garbage bag and tied it off—and then double-bagged it. As she closed the lid on the trash can at the end of the driveway, she turned and saw Robin, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Buttercup! You're okay!"

The embrace was sudden, as were the tears streaming down. "I thought you'd... n-never come back to us. I was so afraid that you'd... that you would—"

She hugged back tolerantly.

"I'm fine."

Robin's face rose. "Is Bubbles okay?"

"She's fine." The response was automatic. What else could she say?

Robin gasped, and sighed with relief. "Is—is there anything I can do to help?" 

* * *

She stopped disinfecting the refrigerator when the doorbell rang, and took the groceries from her.

"You didn't tell anyone we were back home, did you?"

"Nope, I just bought the groceries. I can keep a secret. Here's your credit card. I signed your name."

"Robin..." Her gaze began to drift, but she forced it to resettle. "Thanks."

"Are you... are you sure I can't see Bubbles?"

"No. Sorry."

"But... we're friends!"

"Robin, I... She... Not yet. Sorry. Bye." And she closed the door, leaning up against it with a sigh. She left the bags in the kitchen.

The dull musking smell of sleep warded her with sharp regard for her siblings as she glided through the door frame. She failed to ignore the metal arms, but her blonde sister managed it quite well. Her movements were slow and deliberate, arms low over the face of their impossible sister on the sofa, still unconscious. One hand supported the back of her head while the other hand held a cup, passing water, little by little; she kept swallowing, obediently. Blue eyes met green expectantly.

"I told her to go."

Her neck declined, the pigtails drooping over her ward's pale face, but when the cup came away empty, with no coughs or sputters, she nodded assent. 

* * *

Another night. She closes her eyes. She can see it. It's getting clearer all the time. Outside, the house is for all practical purposes, constant, day or night. Rain-damaged, with the paint dirty, gray and spotted, with the white still showing through. Ugly, with the peeling paint at the corners and the walls, though not cracked, faded. The garage door is dented inward just slightly, warped with time and seasonal changes, enough so that it is rusted at the joints. Spotted. Caked with dirt. Decrepit. Illuminated in high definition, it hurts, so she is relieved as she moves away.

The red door mirrors it. The hurt continues unabated. The window on the left is cracked. All the windows are dirty. A lone car slides down the street, temporarily shattering a thoroughly silent night. She winces and passes straight through the door.

She is drifting back through the foyer, slowly spinning to face the cracks revealing the living room's drywall in the wall above the girl on the worn yet still austere sofa, a rich green that deepens the sleeper as well as the night. She is afraid. The turn into the kitchen reveals more obvious neglect. With no one in it for some time, all the kitchen utensils and cutlery are dirty. She does not disturb the thin layer of dust over everything as she passes by, inexorably pulled up the stairs, which remain relatively unchanged, except for the carpet: slightly matted.

She stops for a moment in the Professor's room, almost mourning. It is made up well, but for the distinctly thick dust covering his bed (its sheets neatly folded over it), the lamp on the nightstand (two drawers, mahogany, and empty), the dresser on the other side of the bed (three picture frames, two of which are turned down). His closet is empty.

It takes her a great deal of effort to back out into hallway. She can see the banister's recent dents, handiwork of her peculiar malady.

There, right across from the girls' bedroom, is the bathroom. Still white tile from top to bottom. Not exactly clean, but it's not as bad as the rest of the house. The tub is caked with a yellow ring against the white, and there is a stench of mildew coming from the drain. Her interest in it is passing. The large mirror pulls her in.

A numb feeling of horror passes over her as she realizes.

The mirror is empty.

Her eyes shoot open. She hasn't left the bed. One of the metal arms is aloft in the air above her, the weight pressing just slightly on her back. She stares at it in panic, and it begins to drop. Only when she sees it on bed beside her does she realize how hard her heart is beating. She breathes it slow. Closes her eyes again. This time it's dark.

* * *

The Mayor turned the key twice and pulled it out of the lock. A turn of the doorknob and she was inside. The click-clack of her high-heeled shoes was loud inside the small room as she stared at the paperwork in her hands. Police reports, ambulance records, all administrative. This woman, wrapped in a bright red blouse and matching dress, was reeling from a draining pressure. She slapped the documents onto her desk, sat back in the office chair, and ran a hand through her voluminous, bright orange hair. The one good thing about this day was that it was finally over.

The machine had been given several aliases: Tektite, Dragoon, Khagan... but now, it was destroyed. Had been for two days, now, but she was still dealing with the fallout. For all of it, she had Buttercup to thank, obviously. But something was... strange. Woman's intuition―or something along those lines―told her that there was more to this story, but she had no proof, nothing to go off of. It was almost like a void had been filled somewhere. But with what?

She continued perusing the documents, and had been for some time, when the door opened, and the Chief of Police poked his pale, balding head in the doorway. "Hello, Mayor," he drawled as he stepped inside her office.

She regarded him curiously. "Hello, Chief. Do you... have something for me?"

He took a slow, deep breath. "A dozen witnesses saw Buttercup taking out the trash at her home."

She blinked, rife with confusion under her thick head of hair. She screwed up her face and turned away slightly in contemplation. She turned it the other way as one thought led to the next. Finally, she shook her head, and turned to him, unsure of how to proceed. "Keep me posted."

He nodded and left the way he came. Sara sat back in her chair, and folded her hands over her lap. "Buttercup... what are you doing? Why aren't you out looking for Bubbles? She's not dead. I know she's not." She took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes in contemplation.

The clock on the wall clicked silently past eight as she reflected on the reports. She sat in silence for a moment more before she leaned forward, over her desk. The leather creaked beneath her as she picked up the phone, and punched the very last button on her speed dial.

It rang once... then twice... and before it had a chance to ring a third time, the call was answered by a very official-sounding woman.

The Mayor parted her lips and took a deep breath. "This is Sara Bellum, from Townsville. Mister Utonium will be expecting my call."

It wasn't long until she was patched through.

"Mister Utonium, I'm calling about the..." She trailed off as there was an interruption. "What _about_ the robot?" Pause. "You know as well as I do that even though it's been destroyed—" Pause. "She apparently left after destroying it. Went home." Pause. "We... well, no, we didn't, yet." Pause. "Yes, I'll take care of it personally."

More instructions came, swift and unrelenting, then suddenly over. Did she understand?

"I understand, yes." Pause. "Thank you. Goodbye, General."


	8. Chapter 2, Part 2

Part 2 - And On The Third Day...

* * *

Her hand slid through her red hair and found someone's hand, and they walked together. Their hands slipped away, and they drifted apart. She saw his sharp appearance grow so old, and he withered away... a skeleton and then dust before her eyes. She turned around and was in a steel cage. Swinging by her left hand from the bars throwing bananas outside with her right... with no one to eat them, they piled up endlessly. The banana pile was now a person, only the silhouette, walking with the sun at their back, steps clanking. He lifted her up, cradling her gently, but she could not see his face. The figure slid her carefully into the circus cannon. It went off with a soft bang. She felt the wind against her face and was happy. Now she was falling, and the only place to land was the middle of the ocean. She did not feel wet, and she sunk through the briny deep, the rippling image of the sky floating up and away. And then all was black, and quiet, and peaceful. She breathed deep, and felt her body rest against the ocean floor, and felt the soft, gritty texture of the sand cradling her.

* * *

"SNRK—Huh?"

Light. The pale of morning.

Cold... sweating. Sitting up from the floor; tasting the inside of her mouth; scratched the scars through her shirt; yawned.

"Where am I? Oh." Buttercup looked around. She blinked, staring blankly as her mind digested the room.

Home. Eyes, half shut. It didn't feel like home. It was, though.

"Guh..."

Something was bothering her in the back of her mind, but she lost as she began to nod off.

The grogginess sat with her for what felt hours. An itchy feeling was spreading up the back of her neck to her head. She lifted up her arm to scratch it, and winced, turning her head away from her arm.

"Oh... Oh. Pff... Aw... Man."

She needed a bath.

* * *

One real, and one fake. Opened and then clenched shut. Blossom's real eye was adjusted to darkness and the dim light of early morning nearly blinded her, but the fake eye was instantly ready, and she held onto that clarity, squinting it, and then opening it fully. She was lying on something soft. She flexed her hand, and felt the sofa.

It rang as distantly familiar.

It firecracked her.

_Home._

And it was _so_ good to be home. The air in the house seemed musty and stale, but she loved it nonetheless.

_But how...?_

She went over the memories she held of the past few hours or so. The robot, Buttercup, Bubbles, some kind of hurricane... it was all so inexplicably fuzzy. She breathed hard in contained frustration, but relaxed as the air of the house pushed into her strong.

_Never mind. I'm here. That's all that matters._

* * *

Bubbles drifted up into the morning—her tenebrous dreams were broken by the sun—she could somehow feel her sisters stir—both of them! It was like cold water—her breath felt sharper, her mind felt clearer—and despite herself, she felt so happy under that light—eyes bathing in the glow—she felt she couldn't move—except the hinting peak of a long lost, hopeful smile.

* * *

Buttercup pressed her hands against the wall of the shower, shaking terribly... she had turned the heat all the way up and had the water running over her skin as she winced and tightened her back.

They burned. The new cuts on her body. They all burned. It was good. It was good that they hurt. When they stopped hurting—when they too were scars—she'd be satisfied.

* * *

She was still lying flat on her back. As she pushed up with her elbows, a hollow pain shot up her spine, and escaped out her mouth.

_Ahh! Stiff! So... stiff._

Blossom tried to stifle her groans and ignore the pain and pushed herself into a sitting position against the arm rest. Looking around, she recognized the room. It was _their_ room, and radiated a kind of nostalgia, but it didn't look the same. The walls were faded―and cracked―and from where she was sitting on the sofa, she could only see a few things. First of all, Bubbles was asleep on a bed angled from the sofa, sleeping peacefully. She wore a pair of light blue sweat pants and a matching t-shirt―the back was ripped open for her mechanical arms, which draped over the side, bunching up on the floor. The twinkling rise and fall of hesitant sunshine coming from the window told her how early in the morning it actually was.

How long had she been asleep, she wondered. Days? It just couldn't have been that long.

The time and date flashed in the right-hand corner of her vision. She tensed up, lifted her hand, and felt cool metal. Then she relaxed, rubbing directly over the solid pupil, feeling the thrill of pressing against her vision. How could she forget? Leave it to _that_ guy to make something useful and annoying at the same time.

It hadn't turned on at all when she'd been extricated from her steel tomb. It was a ridiculous idea at this point that she would no longer need to worry about captivity—yet here she was, free. Along with her sisters, who no longer had to shoulder their burdens by themselves. She took a deep breath and then, slowly, let it out, and found out with almost surprise that the air of home had completely relaxed her.

* * *

Enough.

Her hand changed the hot to cold, to freezing, to stinging, to soothing, and then to biting. The cold ran down her skin and then up her spine. Still good.

Shampoo ran down her face from her hair as she pressed her hands against the wall, shivering hard enough to crack the tile. Now she was clean, and she cut off the flow, wiping the water off her face with both hands, and then brushed aside the curtain.

The towel, dry. Green, and dry. Dry, and soft. The towel was green, and it was soft, and it was dry; it made the cuts stop hurting. She buried her face. Genuine. Safe. Soft. Dry. Green.

_...warm..._

Reward enough for anyone, really.

* * *

There was a stool being used as a table in front of the sofa. A green, plastic bowl of chips; a white, ceramic bowl of salsa; and a pitcher of clear water with a spare glass rested on its surface.

She swallowed against the dry of her throat, and eyed the chips and salsa.

_How long has it been since I've eaten?_ She didn't even remember.

Her thin, pale arms reached up to grab a chip, dip it in the blend in front of her, and then put it to her mouth, savoring the taste.

Her eyes went wide.

She dove for the glass of water, picked it up with both hands, and drank it down eagerly, spilling over the corners of her mouth, and down her shirt, but she didn't care. She pulled back, coughed. Sputtered a moment, and then, choking it back, drank the rest.

Sated, she set the empty glass down, and looked at her clothes for the first time. It was... a blue nightgown. And it was tight on her. Something Bubbles used to wear?

Blue wasn't her color, but she sighed in resignation and gazed into the shadows of the empty room.

* * *

Bubbles frowned a little, as she feigned slumber. Her sisters were back. That should be all that mattered.

But it wasn't. Not for her. Now she was concerned once more. She could feel her sisters' confusion—understanding—anger—fear—misery—satisfaction. She reeled, dizzy with duality as her sisters suffered.

* * *

Blossom's throat still burned wet, and she still felt weak. She ate a few more chips dry and drank more water, and then had just enough strength to shift around so she could see the rest of the room. And as she did so, the first thing she noticed was the bed.

Her jaw dropped just slightly and her eyes widened considerably.

Torn in half, the blanket ripped apart where Blossom's third of the bed used to be; the stuffing of the mattress clearly visible, sticking out from where the two sides of the comforter ended; someone had put a giant crack in the heart-shaped headboard when they broke the bed; the hot line had been torn from the wall; the lamp had crashed to the floor and broken, and no one had picked it up.

Horrible. They were that broken by her disappearance? By her alleged death? Had she really meant so much to them?

Of course, she had thought about it, but told herself that they would be strong, and simply carry on with their own lives... but she was clearly wrong.

And it tore her apart inside.

After her initial shock, she blinked the tears from her left eye and tried to concentrate on the rest of the room.

She sighed. It was just as bad as the bed.

Walls—faded, dented. Some cracked. Did Buttercup do this?

The other side of the room had a plain-looking blue bed with a metal headboard and footboard. Bubbles rested quietly.

The hinges on the door were rusted; the door itself looked like it hadn't actually been cared for in a long time.

There was a light layer of dust over everything, thicker in some areas than others. Powerpuff hand prints in some areas where the dust was less noticeable. Toys were piled carelessly in one corner of the room. The floor was grayed with dust.

The despair showed in her exhale.

_I have to fix this._

_It's my responsibility._

No one would say it were her fault for not being here—she wasn't dismissing the truth. And yet... it was because she wasn't here that this had happened.

* * *

Buttercup stopped outside the door to the bathroom. It was so lonely, here in this house. Only Bubbles. The past few days... a complete blur. She was groggy, even after the shower, and couldn't think straight. She opened the door, silently, and closed it, eyes glazed over, barely able to think. She clutched the towel tighter to her chest, as if to hold herself together. If only she were stronger. If only Bubbles was stronger.

_Bubbles._

Spite filled her when she thought about Bubbles. She wasn't there when Buttercup needed her. And she had gotten all these scars. She could still feel every scratch, every cut, every drop of blood that left her body. And Bubbles was at school, or asleep... she was nowhere around. The only one _left_ to fight was Buttercup.

She got to the door of their room and stopped.

_Blossom._

The memories exploded in her mind, and she reeled, nearly tumbling back through the hall.

_What's wrong with me? What's with my head? She's been back... back for a few days now. She's sleeping! How could I—_

And then she started, eyes wide, her jaw almost slack, peering into the room. _She's awake!_

"B―Blossom!"

* * *

Her eyes trailed back to the doorway, and they met with Buttercup's.

They both flinched at the other's presence.

"B—Blossom!"

A moist hug found its way around her in the time it took her to blink. Buttercup had just finished taking a shower, and she could feel the damp towel wrapped around her body, and smelled the light fragrance of apples emanating from her sister's hair. She smiled, and hugged her back, weakly, but no less affectionately.

"I'm all right, Buttercup."

When Buttercup pulled away, her eyes were wet, and Blossom's eyes widened in surprise. She looked so fierce, especially with that lined scar so neatly notched above and below her left eye; it was shocking, the contrast between the set of her face and the tears. Buttercup quickly wiped them off with one hand.

She couldn't help but chuckle, and shake her head. "Buttercup, didn't you hear me say that it's all right to cry?"

"That's Bubbles. I don't cry."

Blossom smiled wanly at her sister. "Buttercup... you still don't get it."

She blinked. "Get what?"

"You don't have to try to impress us. I know who you are, and I've seen your strength. You took down that robot, and saved me. There's no need to act tough around me. Or Bubbles. Okay?"

Buttercup turned away. She looked back with a hard smile.

"It's no act, Blossom."

Blossom sighed in resign, smiled though disappointed, and tenderly capped her sister's shoulder with her hand, felt the thickness, but didn't break her gaze. "Good."

Buttercup smiled back more earnestly, though her eyes kept drifting to the right (_or her left_, Blossom mused blandly). She regarded her towel, and her cheeks brightened noticeably under the drifting ocher of her skin. "One sec," she blurted, and went over to the dresser, keeping the towel in place with her arms while fumbling with the clothes in her drawer. Blossom wondered if her sister was just self-conscious, or if there was some other reason for this behavior. She was changing rapidly, and got stuck pulling up a blouse a shade of her personal green over dark skin covered in...

And that was when Blossom really noticed them.

The dozens of off-color, jagged, and most painful scars she had ever seen—she couldn't tear her gaze.

How did she _get_ those?

Scars covered the brunette's tanned skin, from a tangle of overlaid ripping curves on her back, to deep, massive scratches to thick, jagged lines on her arms and legs, to dozens of tiny puncture wounds that never really healed...

She began to look away, and saw Buttercup's reflection in the mirror on the other wall, one of the only things in the room that wasn't destroyed. There was the most horrible scar of them all... it ran from her right shoulder, down and across her stomach, tapering on her left leg, ending on the back of the knee. It was only when Buttercup's eyes came up in the reflection that Blossom blinked and turned her eyes.

How... _horrible._

Finally, she sat back against the cushions, and stared straight ahead, the screaming questions in her head blaring out all other thought.

_What happened ? How do I ask?_

It seemed unreal—the idea that a Powerpuff Girl could take that kind of damage _could_ happen: she knew from personal experience—But Buttercup?

Blossom reached for the chips, and concentrated on the crunching noise in her mouth, hoping to drown her inner monologue out.

She swallowed. The silence in the room was tense. She heard a thump and looked to her left.

"BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"

Buttercup was laying upside down across the back of the sofa, her hands tugging against her cheeks, making a face. Blossom flinched sideways. This reaction was apparently hilarious, because her sister laughed so hard she rolled sideways, turning over to sit next to her. "Sorry. I figured you'd want to feel at home."

"Thanks. I needed that." Blossom's grin was mostly wry because, in fact, she had needed it.

Buttercup was smirking, clearly proud to have broken the tension just by being herself. "Not a problem."

Blossom rolled her eyes. Buttercup had wanted to do _that_ for a while.

Buttercup's mirth died down, and she pensively relaxed into the sofa and took a deep breath. "It sure was lonely while you were gone. This house has seen better days. Think I caused most of the damage, though." She looked at the window, and the rising and falling sunlight. "I really couldn't control myself without you around. I guess... it broke me. It broke us."

It certainly looked that way. For a moment, Blossom felt so incredulous as to ask what Buttercup could have possibly been thinking.

But how could she say that? How could she say anything? She'd been _dead._

The moment passed with a million thoughts, but no words.

Then, realizing she did have one question she dared ask, "Hey, Buttercup?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's the Professor?"

Buttercup opened her mouth, but only a sort of squeak came out, and she looked away, her brow furrowed, digging deep for answers.

Bubbles stirred and opened her misty, cerulean eyes as the sun grew particularly strong. With no sleep in her voice, she quavered a "Good morning, Buttercup," in a voice that at once sounded complementary, fearful, decisive, and unless Blossom was mistaken, the barest hint of whispered accusation.

But Buttercup didn't hear any of that—she was just relieved to avoid an awkward question. She glanced outside at the skies, where there were enough clouds to make the sun wink. "It ain't that great, is it?"

"It'll get better," Blossom told her with a shrug. She could find her answer later.

Bubbles breathed in, and the other girls froze. Blossom's words hung. Bubbles sat up, glowing as the light bloomed again, and she leaned to look at Blossom, smiling deeply. "Oh, Blossom. Welcome back!"

There was silence until Buttercup snickered, and drove it home. "Yeah, _now?_ It's _official._"

They laughed, together, for the first time in years.

After a moment, Blossom's stomach let out a strange gurgling sound. They stopped, turning their heads in the direction of the sound, and Blossom put her hand over her stomach. She only had a few chips, and her body ached for something of more substance.

Buttercup chuckled. "I guess it's time for breakfast." She stood up from the couch. "I'll go make some. You two take your time and get ready." And she was a streak of light, and then nothing.

"Is that a good idea?" Blossom whispered loudly when Buttercup was out of the room.

Bubbles smiled too sweetly, and said in a responding stage whisper, "It's better than nothing, I suppose..."

"I heard that!" came the thunder from down the stairs.

Bubbles clamped a hand over her mouth in pretend surprise.

Blossom couldn't help giggling along with her.

* * *

Bubbles had to have Blossom help her with her arms as she got up from the sofa and as they went into the bathroom.

They took turns washing their hands and faces, first Bubbles, then Blossom.

As she stood there, Blossom could feel her sister waiting for her to finish washing up, glancing at her, then back at the floor. Finally, she spoke. "Do you... feel okay... Blossom?"

Blossom answered idly while drying off her hands."Yeah. Of course, why wouldn't I?"

Bubbles pursed her lips for a moment. "You've been... we thought you were... dead."

Blossom froze, the towel still in her hands.

She hadn't thought about it. It wasn't her own emotions that were hurting. She had made an inscrutable error.

Blossom looked up at her crestfallen sister, and hugged her gently. Bubbles hugged back, and closed her eyes, leaking tears.

"Bubbles... I'm sorry I had to leave, but I'm back now. You don't need to worry about me anymore. I'm not going to let anything like that happen again. Okay?"

Bubbles breathed and nodded, her lower lip vying with her upper lip over control of a drooping smile.

Blossom smiled back. "Thank you."

Bubbles lifted her eyes. "...for what?"

_For being so strong_, she wanted to say, instead she just hugged her again. _She's probably the strongest one of us all_, she mused. After they broke the hug, Blossom spoke again. "Let's get downstairs."

Bubbles' eyes were watery as she stood staring at Blossom and sniffling against her runny nose.

A long moment passed, and Blossom leaned in to pat her.

"You hear me?"

Bubbles closed her eyes. She nodded so readily and gratefully that Blossom realized that, somehow, helping Bubbles to the doorway had begun long before they'd gotten near it.

* * *

They walked down the stairs separately. First Blossom, then Bubbles. Blossom still wasn't sure as to what extent her body had recovered its strength. She found little difficulty retaining her balance, and made it down the stairs without issue. When she got to the bottom, she looked up, and waited patiently for Bubbles.

Bubbles was having a little more difficulty. Her bulky, lifeless, mechanical arms weighed heavy on her upper back. Unable to move them herself, she could do nothing but tow them behind her. When she got to the stairs, she took a few steps down and her arms started to slide at an angle down the slope of the stairs. Panicked, she reached for them, and they moved, quickly, in the same direction that she moved her natural arms, which ended up making her vault over them, and almost threw her down the stairs, but the arms were still moving, running her down the stairs of their own volition, and she descended the stairs, panicked, and upside down. At the bottom, still tense, still upside-down, she realized she was okay, and relaxed. The legs then crumpled beneath her like a skyscraper on a shoddy foundation. Blossom helped her to her feet, and they both walked to the breakfast table, the bulky, lifeless, mechanical arms in tow.

* * *

Buttercup never had been one for cooking. The pancakes were a sick yellow, the eggs were spotty, and the bacon had been burned so badly as to be unfit for human consumption—not that a little thing like that had stopped Buttercup. She crunched it stubbornly at the table, waving them over.

The fact that the kitchen had not been cleaned in some time, and that pots and pans were stacked up dirty on either side of the stove top, and that cups, flatware, and bowls were piled in the sink, and that the counter had a number of mysterious and unrecognizable stains, did not make it any better. Bubbles seemed resigned to eating what had been prepared, but just walking into the room made Blossom blanch. This was enough to raise a sulking sigh from Buttercup, and her efforts arced with startlingly speed and accuracy into the garbage.

The three of them opted to break out the fresh cereal and milk in silence. The somber air only broke when a few minutes later Blossom coughed pointedly and took another spoonful of her cereal, glancing up at Buttercup as she did so.

Buttercup took the hint and ventured at conversation. "So, Blossom... uh..." And then, her eyes searched for something else to say, but failed. She needed it now. "Four years ago... when you—I mean... you died."

"Right." They both knew this was wrong, but Buttercup seemed at a loss for another way.

Blossom sighed and took a sip of her milk. "You remember the incident with the volcano?"

"Yeah." Her expression darkened, as did Bubbles'. "We really thought—the lava—I mean, we really didn't really... get the chance to look at the skeleton... "

"No, I understand. I do." Blossom rolled the half-empty glass of milk between her palms.

"But you... weren't. You weren't. You weren't dead. So what happened?"

Blossom paused.


	9. Chapter 2, Part 3

Part 3 - Wool Vision

* * *

Six years ago.

_"Who wants breakfa-a-ast?"_

_Back then, the Professor still served them breakfast with loving care every morning before they went to school, and even during the summer they still ate very well. His pancakes were soft, fluffy, and mouth-wateringly good. His eggs were a golden brown, cooked to perfection, topped with a spoonful of vinegar over each yolk, and so palpable that the steam itself was heavenly._

_"I do!" Bubbles bounced in her seat as he brought over the food._

_"Wow, Professor, this looks great!" Blossom loved his pancakes. She was still learning how to cook, and had a long way to go. But she was learning. Some day, she would be as good, if not better, than he was._

_"Man, I'm starving!" Buttercup grabbed a strip of bacon and shoved it unceremoniously into her mouth, chewing loudly, and gulping it down. And then she belched._

_He laughed admonishingly. "Easy, Buttercup. You don't want to—"_

_As she shoved a pancake into her mouth, she began to choke. She grasped at her throat with her left hand, and slammed her right hand on the table. Blossom passed her her milk, and she drank it down, slammed down the glass, and breathed deep. "Whoo. I thought I was a goner."_

_Bubbles giggled and took a careful bite of her eggs, drank her juice and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin._

_"Very polite, Bubbles," he praised._

_"Thank you, Professor."_

_

* * *

_

Five years ago.

_The simian stood over his plans, his mouth moved in a fluid circular motion, and he stuffed another piece of toast into his mouth as he calculated and planned. He lifted up a map, studied it, and then went back to the blueprint. With a compass, he made small marks on the page at intervals from one another, and then idly reached out and grabbed his cup, and turned it up, drinking his tea with haste._

_His eyes burned as they moved from one spot to another, plotting his schemes, calculating his actions, deducing the acts of his foes, the accursed Powerpuff Girls._

_He shoved a banana into his mouth, and lifted up his blueprints, running the plan in his head, trying to see if he missed something. His mouth still chewed furiously as his eyes darted from one end of the drawing to the next._

_His mouth stopped._

_He smiled, and swallowed loudly._

_"Perfection."_

_

* * *

_

Four years ago.

_She opened her eyes for the first in what felt like a long time. She looked around, but all was dim, she could only see a few things from where she was. Beakers, a mortar and pestle, a chemistry set, vials filled with labeled reagents that seemed to glow even in the dim light, new wooden tables with drawers and shelves._

_She tried to move and felt something pull at her leg. She looked down and saw that her legs were anchored to a metal brace. She tried to reach for it and something pulled at her hand. She looked up, and then to the other hand, but they were both similarly bound. And as she tried to move again, fear clutched at her heart._

_No powers._

_She was trapped._

_And then the lights came on, and she was blind._

_Her eyes adjusted slowly, and she saw he who had captured her, and she gasped in horror._

_Why was he still alive? It was impossible, she had seen it with her own eyes! And here he was, right in front of her!_

_Soon, he got close enough that she could see the items in his hand._

_A bowl of cereal, a glass of milk, and some French toast._

_Sure, it was better than nothing, but..._

_"Open your mouth," he ordered, and she grudgingly obliged._

_

* * *

_

Three years ago.

_The claw tickled the air lightly as it waved in contemplation. The plan was forming in his sinister mind. For since he knew all that was, he need only predict what would be._

_He had his means._

_He had his devices._

_He had his servants._

_But it wasn't enough._

_More power._

_More _power!

_A servant at his side met with his wrath of his claw, and it put a scaly hand to its face and scampered away with a frightened shriek._

_All that he had wasn't enough. He needed more power to destroy them. He knew of all the villains in the world; their minds flooded into him, giving him an even greater reservoir of evil all the time. But it wasn't enough._

_They must die._

_Those three must die._

_Those accursed Powerpuff Girls!_

_And then, like a single spark that caused a forest fire, his plan formed and fleshed out in his brain._

_His evil grin widened, and all his minions stared at it in horror._

_

* * *

_

Two years ago.

_No Professor. No Blossom._

_Buttercup and Bubbles sat joylessly at the table with some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They sat mostly in silence, but for Buttercup's eating habits having improved none since last. Her chewing was loud; she tapped at the table idly with the handle of a table knife as she drank her milk; she made big gulping sounds as she chugged it straight from the container._

_Bubbles was thirsty. It was better than nothing. "Can I have some milk, Buttercup?"_

_Buttercup stopped only long enough to say, "Get yer own," and then drank the rest._

_Bubbles whimpered and put a spoonful of dry cereal into her mouth even as the tears dripped down the sides of her face._

I wish Blossom were still alive.

_

* * *

_

One year ago.

_He awoke._

_He sat up and scratched at his rugged features. He turned his head to his right._

_She was still sleeping next to him._

_…_

_Well, that was good, wasn't it?_

_Still, he shifted his weight, and stood from the bed, pausing only to stretch and pop the muscles in his neck before he headed downstairs._

_He yawned as he prepared breakfast as only a bachelor knew how. The eggs prepared the way he liked them; strips of bacon, crisp but still chewy; fluffy French toast sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon; he didn't make pancakes anymore._

_He pulled the orange juice from the fridge and poured himself a glass._

_Two plates at the table, both set with food._

_She came down only after smelling the feast, and wrapped her arms around him from behind. He smiled as she cooed into his ear, "You're really wonderful, John."_

_"Thank you, Mary." He turned and kissed her in his seat. She walked to a chair, and seated herself. The chair creaked and skidded as she pulled it to the table under her._

_She bit into the eggs._

_"How do you like them," he asked, as he took a bite of his own._

_For a moment, she seemed hesitant, but she smiled and told him simply: "Heavenly."_

_He smiled and took another bite of his eggs. But in his mind, he was saying, "Not her either, huh."_

* * *

Now.

"It's why I have this eye, and why I was in that robot."

Buttercup, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, slammed her hands on the table and shot out of her chair. "HE'S _ALIVE?_"

Bubbles was in a similar state of shock, and looked from Blossom to Buttercup and then back, questioningly.

Blossom nodded, but then looked unsure. "I think so. I mean, he _might_ still be. You remember how he—"

"Of course! Burnt to a crisp! You're telling me he faked that, too?"

Blossom once again shook her head yes. "About a month after he kidnapped me... he told me how he did it."

* * *

Miles away, Miss Bellum, palms pressed against her eyes to smother the oncoming headache, couldn't help but recall the last half hour. Each call she made went roughly the same way:

Charles Ace: "I've been following the stories around Buttercup since Blossom died, and well... I don't think that going over there is such a good idea, Miss Bellum."

Sae Tanomu: "I'm sorry, Mayor, but I'm too afraid of being hurt."

Frank Simmons: "Miss Bellum, I'm not going within a mile of that house."

Dozens of calls, no takers.

She knew they were all afraid of Buttercup's volatile mood swings, and didn't hold it against them that they refused... but she needed to find out what was going on without bringing that family any more negative publicity.

What to do...?

As if on cue, the phone suddenly rang.

Which was odd, because most of her phone calls were directed to her by her secretary. Was it a wrong number?

She lifted it out of the cradle, pausing before she brought forth her voice. "Hello?"

"Miss Bellum, this is Jack Wednesday. First, my apologies for calling your office directly. Second, _stop_ calling everyone in your Rolodex."

She jumped in her seat. "How did you—"

"We put a keyword system through the phone service some time ago to monitor and flag terrorist activity. Added to that list just recently? Buttercup and Bubbles. We'll be closely monitoring those with information pertaining to them. I happened to hear about your first and second calls about five minutes ago, and I began to wonder why you wouldn't just go yourself. And why wouldn't you go yourself? Because you didn't want any more publicity. Am I right?"

She opened her mouth to speak.

"Of course I'm right," he continued, and she closed her lips. "And here I am, willing to do you a huge favor and go myself. But you were planning to make another phone call to a 'trusted' source, weren't you?"

She looked down at her list and there was one name that wasn't crossed off. "Yeah, Brian Sherlock."

He scoffed. "Just cross him off your list now. I wouldn't trust that guy as far as I could throw him."

"But he's—"

"Never mind him, Miss Bellum, we have more important things to worry about."

She was beginning to worry about having to spend another minute talking to him.

"I'm on my way over now. I'll give you another call once I'm finished talking to her. Goodbye." He hung up abruptly, and she stared at the phone, and then rubbed her head for the tenth time in the last hour.

"Where's my aspirin...?"

* * *

Blossom's eyes cast down. "It was a brilliant plan. And... while I hate to admit it, he won."

Buttercup sat back in her chair, her mind racing. It was almost too much for her.

Bubbles averted her eyes from Blossom.

The experiments—her eye—the robot—the memory.

"Well... almost won," she added, and smiled. They smiled back.

"All right, then. It's my turn," Blossom's voice got lower, and she crossed her hands on the table. "What happened to this house after I went missing?"

Blossom noticed, barely, that Bubbles' gaze went dark and she stared down at the bowl of cereal in front of her. Buttercup looked away for a moment. A lot of it was apparently too painful, even for her.

Buttercup finally started speaking. "All of us were really sad. I think... maybe Professor took it the worst. He'd just sit in his lab all day, trying to get his mind off of... off of your death."

Blossom nodded, even knowing that she didn't understand his pain in the least. It was his, not hers. She had been taken from him, not the other way around.

"I guess I didn't help... Beating up monsters, beating up criminals... breaking the house... It was easier to break stuff than think about it..."

Blossom glanced at Bubbles. Bubbles was becoming more and more pale.

"Soon, the Professor was called away on some government assignment, or something. We came home from school one day, and found a note and a credit card on the living room table. It read, 'Girls, I've got some work to do. Use the credit card to buy whatever you need, but don't overspend. I'll be home as soon as I can. Professor.' It was like... like he abandoned us, or something. He almost never called, almost never came home, never... "

Blossom blinked. This was strange, even for the Professor. "How long has he been gone?"

Her green eyes drifted back in contemplation. "From home? A little over two years."

"Oh." She sat back in her chair, quietly rubbing her hands. They had gone cold and sweaty. She only just noticed the twitch in Bubbles' mechanical arms.

"Well," Buttercup continued, "he comes home every so often, y'know, just to make sure we're all right. I don't see him much, but Bubbles does, right? Bubbles?"

Bubbles had dropped her hands to her lap, not even considering the food in front of her.

"Bubbles?"

She started at Buttercup, and swallowed with effort.

"I..."

She swallowed again.

Glancing up, she saw the glass of milk on the table. She reached for it, but one of her mechanical arms moved instead and knocked over the glass, She twitched, yelping, shifting her shoulders as if wanting to turn her arms, but the mechanical arm crushed the glass, and knocked over a bowl of cereal.

A piece of bread from the counter flew towards them and hit Buttercup on the side of her head. "What the—!"

"I'm sorry!" Bubbles' panicked voice cut through the sounds of the silverware clanging together as they lifted into the air. Milk floated as spherical globs inches above the table, and rippled endlessly with patterns of orbiting cereal whirling around them.

She reared backwards, knocking her chair over, and the robotic limbs were moving, now legs as well as arms, her real hands firmly clutching her head.

Buttercup opened her mouth, a shout of frightened frustration dying on her lips as Blossom darted out of her chair and threw her arms around Bubbles' waist as it lifted from the ground.

A shocking tone of sweet calm lilted to Buttercup's ears.

"It's okay, Bubbles. I've got you. Everything's fine. It's okay." Bubbles drifted down just slightly, and Blossom moved, held tighter, pressing her hands against her sister's back, sliding her hands above the warped tissue that held the robotic arms. "Take a deep breath. Calm down. It's okay... it's okay. That's it. Breathe."

The arms stopped moving, and then slowly, they drifted to the floor. Everything that was floating in the air fell to the kitchen floor with a clatter. Milk splattered across the table, and cereal decorated its surface.

Buttercup sat in her chair, nonplussed. How had Blossom known to do that? Was Blossom always this smart?

Blossom' arms found their way around Bubbles' shoulders with soft sympathy for her sister, who cried softly; the bionic limbs once more deadened along the floor.

"Bubbles."

Bubbles' eyes met Blossom's.

"Even if you're a Powerpuff Girl, you're still human, and all these emotions are a part of you. Don't hold them back, or be afraid. You can let me know if _anything's_ bothering you... okay?"

Bubbles smiled, and nodded, and Blossom smiled back.

Blossom quirked an eyebrow, "Looks like I'm still the big sister, huh?"

And finally, Buttercup found herself smiling, too.

Bubbles giggled, and her mechanical arms moved up, wrapping Blossom into a very light hug for an instant—then they fell to the floor. Blossom looked at them with a sudden intense interest.

Blossom patted her sister on the head, smiling. Her gaze dropped to the arms that had just thudded to the floor, and she followed them up to her sister's back. Her gaze hardened, and she stepped over the arm, inspecting the joints, the connections, anything that caught her eye. "Hold still, Bubbles," she told her. "We need to see how these work. Maybe we can remove them."

"Really?" Bubbles' voice perked at the last two words; she looked down at the arms, and finally back to Blossom.

Blossom nodded, very seriously. "If we can figure out exactly how they work, you can learn to use them more effectively. If we can remove them, you won't need to."

Bubbles did as she was told, and stood as still as she could.

Buttercup came over to take a look, and shot cursory glances up and down the arms, but really didn't get it at all. She watched her red-headed sister carefully run her hands along the surface of the tube-like arms and even picked one up from the floor, looking at it closely. Buttercup stared at her blonde sister's back, and grasped one of the arms, tugging it experimentally.

"Ah!" Bubbles head fell back with a sharp jerk, and her body tensed up as everything happened all at once.

* * *

_The sound made her turn her head, the sickening sound of bones caving in underneath soft skin. She turned just as the girl hit the floor a dozen feet away, the whole street agape, as Buttercup took another step forward._

No, Buttercup! Don't!

_Vision shook, and there was Buttercup standing right in front of her, faltering, as if unable to simply shove her aside._

_Her teeth grit, eyes glared. "Did you hear her, Bubbles? Did you hear what she said?"_

I-t-s-o-n-l-y-f-a-i-r.

_Bubbles nodded. "Yes."_

* * *

Blossom finally opened her eyes. She pushed the chair off her body and rubbed the sore spot on her head. She started crawling over to Buttercup's legs, sticking out from the overturned table, as they flexed and the table flew forcefully to one side.

Bubbles was still sitting in the middle of the room, and finally opened her eyes—there was nothing in them but shock and surprise as she stared back at her sisters.

Blossom looked at Buttercup.

Buttercup looked at Bubbles.

Bubbles looked at Blossom.

Blossom spoke. "Let's not do that again."

Buttercup nodded. "Yeah."

Bubbles' surprise faded and she began to laugh weakly. Buttercup's rougher chuckles mixed in, and Blossom let out quieter, but more persistent laughter. She was already kneeling into the limbs a second time.

She stared.

A long moment passed. She pressed her hands into the plastic-like square of flesh where the limbs entered Bubbles' back. Then she released.

Another moment passed. Her sisters held their breath.

She began speaking. Very rapidly.

"The base looks almost... when I pressed down, you could almost see the shapes. These... limbs are jointed internally, and connected to your spine. Maybe neural inversion—linking directly with your brain waves. They seem to go out of your body via a series of woven, electrically sensitive bands of some kind of colloidal polymer alloy 'skin' that stretches and retracts at will. The rest of the legs are very simple; no internal circuitry—just some mechanical joints, nothing to suggest any alternate power source. I can't say for certain, but it looks like this whole complex system is using the neuro-electromagnetic flux—Or, well, the very state of mind, of... you, Bubbles."

During this sudden outpour of words, her sisters had time to look from her to each other questioningly, as if to ask where she had been that she had learned to speak like that? The silence persisted even after Blossom pulled away from her sister's back. She took a step backward.

Then, hearing the thickness of the silence, looked up at her sisters. Her eyes grew uncertain. "Don't you... think so?"

"Oh—oh yeah." Buttercup nodded a little too fast, smiling excessively. "That's pretty cool. I never would have guessed you could see all that stuff so easy."

"Oh! Well, yes! Yes, I... yes. I yes. I mean, I—" and at that moment Bubbles struggled, really struggled for something that made it seem like she knew what Blossom was talking about. And then the moment was over. "—see." She bit her lip.

Blossom's head flopped forward as she failed to stifle a building chuckle. She snickered at the floor. "You guys are hopeless," she muttered. She leaned in, and poked their ribs. Shocked into laughter by her audacity, they made to move out of her reach, but she followed them and kept tickling, leaning even further. She tripped forward, but they were there. Ready. Her sisters kept laughing as they righted her, but pinned her arms to stop the onslaught, and all at once they were embraced in a warm group hug.

They really were still family.

...

A tremor passed through Blossom. She thought she saw one metal arm move. She broke away, and so they all did, and it did not escape her that another round of accusation passed across Bubbles' face.

"This house is pretty messy." She turned to Buttercup. "Buttercup, could you start cleaning the rest of the house? Bubbles and I will work on this... latest disaster."

Buttercup stared at her, first blankly, then apparently weighing her resistance. Finally, "Yeah, I'll go upstairs."

Blossom nodded, and began helping Bubbles as Buttercup disappeared upstairs.

Not satisfied that Buttercup wouldn't be able to hear what they were saying, she leaned in, her voice barely audible.

"Bubbles."

Without even asking, Bubbles answered, and with apparent familiarity with her sister's volume, matched it. "Buttercup didn't tell you everything."

Blossom shrugged. "I thought so."

She hesitated, and then parted her lips. "The Professor didn't leave _just_ because he was called away by the government. Something... happened."

Blossom waited, and Bubbles found the courage to speak.

Her lip was quivering, her voice squeaked terribly. "She... hurt him."

Blossom pursed her lips and sighed through her nose. It was like ice spreading over her skin. It didn't even matter what they were fighting about. Buttercup was a superhero. She was not supposed to lash out at anyone in anger, let alone her father. Hitting him was inexcusable.

She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. "I see," she muttered. After a moment, she asked, "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Just before... before I was kidnapped."

"Before you were... Oh." She turned back to the dishes, choosing her words quickly. "Did something happen before then?"

"...Yes." She waited, but Blossom didn't say anything. "Buttercup—hurt... she was hurt too... she... the hospital..."

She needed details, but Bubbles wasn't the right person in the right state of mind to ask. "I understand. Thanks, Bubbles. Let's clean these pots and pans. Try to think of something else, okay?"

"Okay." She still looked sad, but started on the dishes.

They scrubbed the contents of the sink together and soon had a full rack of clean cookware. The counter top was scrubbed, and the floor swept and mopped.

Once it was dry, the cookware was neatly stacked into the cupboard by Bubbles—the only one of the two who could hover off the ground to do it, the limbs settling beneath her as she wobbled upwards.

Blossom sighed. She didn't like this feeling of weakness. Her powers were still gone, and probably wouldn't come back. Only the eye seemed to be left. She didn't know how she could possibly fight crime alongside her sisters.

Bubbles glanced at Blossom out of the corner of her eye, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. The limbs tangled and clanked as she shifted in the air. Blossom looked up at her in confusion.

"It's... so hard to fly... I don't understand..."

"Bubbles, maybe I can help."

Bubbles looked up at her, head low, but eyes engaged.

"Can you think about... a rainbow for me?"

Bubbles raised an eyebrow, but rolled her eyes up in thought.

She smiled.

The metal limbs began to twitch.

"Now think of that rainbow as an extension of your arms. Make it real, and imagine it coming from your back, and bending, like your legs, back and forth. Walking."

She did as Blossom suggested, and closed her eyes, concentrating. All four arms pushed into the floor and stretched out, raising her up and down in the air.

"Nice, Bubbles! Can you—" The arms dropped. Bubbles winced with guilt.

Blossom blinked, confused; but then she turned.

Buttercup was right behind her, pursing her lips. "Uh... upstairs is good. Well, except for the big ol' cracks in the walls and stuff. But I got as much dirt as I could find..." Her eyes shifted between them. " What are—"

"Good job," Blossom said, the blunt cut-off hanging in the air. Buttercup frowned.

Another thick moment drifted past, then Blossom put her hand to her abdomen deliberately. "Ah... Hm. I''ll be right back." She hurried into the bathroom just past the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

Buttercup sighed. She was tired, and sat down on the sofa. She watched as Bubbles absently began experimenting with her mechanical legs again and managed to wobble herself back to a balanced standing position.

Buttercup nodded, strongly. "_Nice_, girl."

Despite herself, Bubbles smiled appreciatively. She shifted her weight and nearly toppled, but caught herself just in time. Buttercup craned her head to the side, cracking her neck to relieve the sudden tension she felt.

"Nice... if a little weird."

Bubbles looked at her, and just when Buttercup thought she was about to muster up the nerve to say something back, they heard a knock on the door. They stared at it.

Bubbles looked at Buttercup, winced, and leaned her head towards the door.

Buttercup looked at Bubbles, shrugged, and jumped up to open the door. Just enough to see out.

She looked up at the tall figure before her.

She gently closed the door.

She stood there, pressing her hand against the door, blankly, and took a deep breath.

After a moment, the person on the other side knocked again, a little stronger.

She opened the door, stepping aside to let him in.

Jack Wednesday stepped inside and removed his hat. He still wore his same faded trenchcoat, but he poised himself differently. "Good morning, Buttercup," came his gruff and frankly unconvincing hello.

"Hi," she said curtly, not even bothering to look back at him.

He looked up and stopped. Then began the march of his voice.

"Bubbles. Good. You're both here now. Two heroes, fighting twice as many problems. No doubt you found her after fighting the scrap metal that used to be one of Townsville's greatest threats—and you would know plenty about that, wouldn't you? Of course you would, that's why I'm here. Bubbles. Glad to see you back. Hoped your sister might have done something. Something like find you." He paused, his head lilting slightly. "Or was it the other way around?"

Buttercup glanced at Bubbles, and answered, "Yeah... Something like that."

His eyes passed over her new bionics, but he seemed uninterested. "Mind telling me what happened?"

Buttercup hugged her arms and looked away.

"Well, after such eloquence, you leave me no choice but to get right to the point, Buttercup," he said after a brief pause. "We need you."

"What, at school?" Wasn't he a truant officer? Even so, it wasn't as if she was really learning anything at school anymore. Either way, it would get him to elaborate.

"First of all, Buttercup, it's July; school's out. Second, I don't work for the police anymore. I'm a government agent: Not just any government, but the government of the United States of America, a government you should be very familiar with. "

"Yeah."

Her lack of emotion didn't bother him, but he was still waiting for a proper answer from her.

She shrugged. "Sorry. I've got stuff to deal with here. Come back in a few weeks."

Her tone annoyed him before she even finished speaking, and he dipped down and stared her in the face; she flinched away from him. "We don't have weeks, Buttercup. The world is in danger. I'm not going to sit by—the _government_ is not going to sit by idly and wait for something good to happen to it. You're a superhero, and superheroes have one responsibility and one responsibility only: To save the world. Ordinary folk depend on you to make things right when things are wrong, and something is very, very wrong right now. So get ready. Your services are required."

"NO!" she shouted, still inches from his face. "I've got enough to deal with! Family is all I have right now! There aren't any more monster attacks, and all the supervillians are afraid to come anywhere near me."

"You're right, they don't come near you, so that explains why they've been attacking other cities, and states, and countries, and why you need to go near _them_. Nothing major yet, but a few villains have been gaining power. Someone planted a virus in E-male's mainframe last month, and his J-Body needed to be restored from a tape memory bank. Mushu Guy Man came down with severe food poisoning, and Miss Spell faced a deranged chef and was cooked by her own Fira! Things are—"

Buttercup kept a straight face, but let out a small snicker.

"That's funny, huh?" he asked dangerously.

"It's not. That's terrible. Why would I laugh?

He still glared at her, but didn't argue. "We need you, you're a superhero, it's your responsibility, and you will come with me."

"Don't know _how_ you could possibly _make_ me."

"You know very well why you're going to come with me—"

The door to the next room opened, and Blossom peered out from the doorway. Bubbles, basically anchored to the floor by her mechanical legs, had to turn her head to see her. Buttercup looked in her direction, her presence a welcome distraction from the current conversation.

Mr. Wednesday's eyes went wide, and he stared at her, as if seeing a ghost. After the initial shock, he focused on her robotic eye. He seemed transfixed by it; it gave him the answer to a few things that jumped into his mind by the sight of her.

He stood up, still staring at her, then glanced at Buttercup. He looked back at Blossom, deep in thought. He seemed to come to a conclusion. "I was never here." Putting on his hat, he turned towards the door. "Expect to hear from me soon." He closed the door on his way out. Silence. They heard him pull his car out of the driveway and drive off. More silence.

Buttercup breathed a sigh of relief. After a moment, her face contorted and she began laughing.

"What's so funny?" Bubbles asked.

"Miss Spell got cooked! Haha! That's hilarious!"

* * *

They spent the rest of the day relaxing, just feeling one another's warmth as they sat on the couch in front of the television. They watched cartoons, sitcoms, dramas... they laughed and cried (in the case of Blossom and Bubbles) together for the first time since Blossom had gone away, and were just trying to enjoy each others' company. They fell asleep on the sofa while the TV played reruns of old shows from the fifties, and dreamed beautiful dreams.

That night, Blossom awoke to follow the call of nature. Heading to the bathroom, she closed the door softly behind her.

After she finished, she started washing her hands and happened to look at her reflection. Her eye was staring back at her. The one that wasn't her own. It was the first time she had really inspected it.

With the synthetic coating that masked its true form gone, it no longer looked like an imitation Powerpuff Girl's eye. The iris shone with a bright red inner light, surrounded by a conical moving array that adjusted focus. The surface of the eye, contoured to her eye socket, was covered in a grayish-black metal, perhaps Teflon-coated, she thought. Watching her eye closely, she moved her head to the side, watching as the eye rotated in her socket, mirroring her real eye. She had to admit, it was very well-constructed. It worked perfectly, the way it was supposed to.

She went back to the couch, sliding between her sisters.

And her thoughts came to rest on the Professor, even as she drifted back to sleep. She wondered how he was doing, and when he'd ever be back.

And whether she'd get to see him again.

* * *

"Hello?"

"This is Jack Wednesday."

"Yes, Mister Wednesday, what do you have to report?"

"The girls are safe and alive."

"Oh! Wonderful. I'm glad to hear it."

There was a pause.

"Is there anything else, Jack?"

He hesitated very briefly. "Nothing. Goodbye."

* * *

Days passed, and Jack Wednesday submitted his report upon returning from Townsville. It was a usual workday, in a not-so-usual top-secret government research facility code-named Sugar Grove.

John Utonium put on his face shield, lit the torch, and heated the metal. In his other hand, he picked up the hammer and tapped at the imperfection, flattening it. The project was tedious and came with long hours, but it was part of his job, and it had to be done. Overall, he liked his job very much, and it had some perks, the least of which was having access to a great deal of "Top Secret" government projects that were very interesting, and that carried a great deal of importance to the world. Not that anyone would ever hear of his accomplishments, but sometimes he preferred it that way.

A sharp noise caught his attention from the edge of his safety boundary. One of his co-workers was calling out to him.

Turning around, he saw, through the nearly pitch-black visor of his face shield, Chuck, a squirrelly-looking man with thick horn-rimmed glasses and only a name-tag adorning his white—and heavily stained—lab coat. Chuck waved to him, so he turned the gas off and removed his protection.

"Chuck! How are you doing?"

"Fine, John, fine. How's, uh, the work going?"

"Oh, it's going. What can I help you with?"

"Well, uh, the boss wants to, uh, see you right now, so he sent me to, uh, find you."

"I see. Thank you, Chuck."

"No problem. I'll, uh, take over where you left off."

"Great! Thanks."

Making his way up the staircase leading to the first floor, he turned to the left and went down the hall to Mr. Roosevelt's office.

He knocked on the door. "Mister Roosevelt?"

"Yes, John, come in. And close the door."

He did as he was told and took a seat in front of the desk. His boss had a file on his desk, and it was labeled with a "Confidential" stamp across the front. His boss folded his hands over the desk and spoke. "Do you know why I called you here, John?"

"No, sir, I was simply told—"

"Well, Jack Wednesday just returned from his trip to Townsville. He left a report on his visit. I think you ought to see it." He slid the file across the desk.

John furrowed his brow and picked up the file. He opened it and turned past the cover page and began to read. He let out a startled gasp. Relief overwhelmed him, and he found himself muttering, "Bubbles. Thank God." He continued reading, and the expression on his face changed. The report stated that someone else was staying with the two of them, but it didn't say who, or anything else, for that matter. The report finished by recommending that John Utonium be given an immediate reprieve to visit Townsville for a period no greater than three weeks. Soon, he finished reading and set the file down. Three weeks? Why? Something was awry.

"Your leave starts tonight, and we'll call you if we need anything. Until then, you are free to spend time with your girls, and we'll see you in three weeks."

"But sir, the project I've been working on—"

"The project, while important, is not nearly as important as your family. Never was, and never will be. Others will work on it in your absence. Besides, you haven't had a decent break for six months. I think you deserve it."

John fell silent. He had been working almost non-stop. It was a form of stress relief to him, but he was neglecting his responsibilities as a father. Why had he gone so long without seeing them?

"As I said, if anything comes up, we'll call you, but for the time being, you are relieved of your duties. Enjoy your leave, Professor."

And with that, he was dismissed.

* * *

She woke back up. Stared up at the ceiling, and put a hand to her eye.

The fake one.

It whirred softly in her socket as she focused her vision on one particular bump, just eying it, testing the limits of her vision. She turned and stared out the window at the moon, in the sky, floating amidst quintessence, reflecting light to those who would undoubtedly need it, somewhere.

How long had it been since she had actually seen a full moon? The time was like one long moment. It was like a dream... or a nightmare.

His hand, wrinkled and gray, held the syringe that released the Antidote X into her body, making her feel even weaker... even more helpless than before...

His clothes, faded and gray though it had undoubtedly been vivid and colorful years ago, made him look older, even as his skin grayed and sagged.

His eyes, fast, darting here and there, revealing his quick wit and sharp attention to detail; even as such, they were steady and focused when they needed to be.

Everything she called forth from the depths of her mind came back as if it had been only yesterday. She touched her eye once more, pressing just a little harder, and she shivered as she brought forth the most painful memory of them all.

_She saw the needle coming closer. It looked larger than it was out of her right eye. The machine behind it, precise, being controlled by someone with steady hands._

_"Your eye has been numbed. It looks scary, but you don't need to be—"_

_"I get it," she said, no less afraid of the needle, but less desiring of a lecture from some mad scientist. "Just do it, okay?"_

_He frowned. "Spoilsport."_

_The needle came closer and closer, and she didn't feel any pain as it pierced her cornea and mixed the solution with the fluid in her eye. Even so, she only saw the machine blur into her vision as the needle slid in, did what it was there for, and then left the same way it came._

_"Finished," he told her. "Let me know if you feel any discom—"_

_"AHHHHHHHH ! !" Her vision went white, and then it went red as the solution in her eye began to burn not just her eye, but the surrounding tissues. As she shook her head to try to rid herself of the pain, she felt a warm liquid cascade over the side of her head and onto the table to which she was strapped._

_Her eye seared, clenched shut. Even if she wanted to, she didn't know if she could open them. The burning, stinging, ripping pain threw the rest of her body into convulsions, even as she was strapped securely to the table._

_Her screaming grew louder, and she barely noticed that she felt his hand at her face, tilting her head to the right, and a cool, soothing liquid ran over her face._

_The last thing she remembered before passing out was a thick milky scent all around her._

* * *

_She awoke._

_There was no pain._

Am I dead, _she asked herself. And then she noticed her captor in front of her, his head in his hands, shaking his head slowly._

_"Hey..." she began, confusion rife in her voice, "what happened?"_

_He looked up at her. He looked as if he were in the middle of a nervous breakdown. He looked around for something to say, and finally placed his head back in his hands._

_She furrowed her brow. "Are you okay?"_

_After what seemed the longest time, "I am fine, Blossom... but you are not." He looked up, and there were tears in his eyes. "The experiment was a colossal failure. You..." he stopped, only for a moment. "...you are now... incomplete." He once again buried his head in his hands._

_She was... not sure what he meant by that. His speech was strangely straightforward. Maybe if she pressed..._

_"What do you mean, 'incomplete?'"_

_He looked up, and seemed to be staring at her right eye. Finally, he held up a hand mirror, and she looked into it._

_Her mouth went slack; her vision shook; she turned away._

_No..._

_How did this happen?_

_Tears streamed down the left side of her face._

_Her right eye was gone..._

She had her eyes clenched shut, pressing against the eyelid over her cybernetic eye, as she shuddered and tried to rid herself of this sick feeling. It was enough to make her heave, but she swallowed, and took a deep breath. The sickness, she realized, wasn't borne of disgust. She bore no ill will towards her captor, though she wished the experiment had gone differently. The routine of the world before that experiment, it had taught her remorse for the hate she'd nursed for so long. It had brought her to pity her tormentor. Sympathy for his mania. The experiment killed that routine. It pushed him past her. Before the experiment, he might have even returned from the brink.

How long had it been since she had last seen him?

"Mojo," she whispered, quietly.


	10. Chapter 2, Part 4

Part 4 - Rapid Third Eye Movement

* * *

The sun rose reluctantly. Sliding ever-so-slowly into the sky on the horizon, its orange-red glow cast a cool morning light on the landscape. The light slithered across the grass, and the ladybugs yawned, and flitted their wings as they took a sip of the morning dew, and basked in the fresh rays from the sun.

It baked the land as it went further and further, and then stopped at a white, faded wall. It seemed hesitant, but it climbed, higher and higher and finally poked its way into the bedroom windows.

The sun touched the sleeping girl's eyes and brought that familiar sting, and she clenched them tighter shut. She opened them slowly and tried to roll over, away from it.

But they were in her way.

After a moment of just thinking about why she couldn't turn her body, she once again closed her eyes and sighed.

So _annoying._

Two, coiled over her body like a shield; the other two lay above and below, cradling her gently. She concentrated on the arms, and on what she wanted to do. At once they untwisted and moved away, and then she turned her body just enough to rise, and dangle her legs over the side of the bed, still squinting against the impertinent beams. Her arms dropped slowly, clanking as they bumped against themselves on the floor. She looked at them briefly. She wasn't as... weirded out by them anymore.

Why was that? Because of what Blossom had told her?

_...the very state of mind of... you, Bubbles..._

They were a part of her. They were an extension of herself.

Permanent?

Maybe.

In silence, she sat, and shook her head clear, then stood, and stretched with some minor discomfort. Finally, she hunched forward, allowing her back to peacefully relax.

She turned, and looked onto the bed.

Blossom slept on the other side, almost smiling. She looked around the room. Buttercup was... nowhere in sight.

At first, she didn't react, but she smiled, crawled back on to the bed, and sat on her heels, just staring at her in silence.

It had been so long since they had shared the same bed. The fact that she could sit there and watch her in slumber... well, that was enough. Just the _thought_ was enough, really.

She looked down at the arms.

_...the very state of mind..._

She didn't need to be ashamed... she knew that. Buttercup didn't like them, but in her absence, Bubbles could do what she wanted, and it felt... good.

She concentrated, slowly, and it heeded her easily now. One arm uncoiled and extended. Her eyes met the bookcase, and it reached out to it, pressing its tip against the books. As if she were right in front of it, she knew the books, even though she couldn't see them. As she pulled away, a single book came out of the bookcase, slowly—her eyes flickered, but never broke her concentration. As it left the shelf, it dangled from the rounded tip of the arm. It was like a magnet.

She concentrated just a little harder. _Like a hand._

The book stopped swinging and held its place. As she brought it to her, the book opened and it flipped to a random page. She loved this story.

She looked to her right, brought her focus to the other arm, and simply extended it across the room, slowly going over the bed, towards the far wall. She touched it experimentally, and then began to pull back. Her arm passed over the bed.

_...at're you doi..._

The book dropped to the floor, and she froze. She heard... Blossom's voice? From where? The arm? No... but it had passed Blossom when she heard it.

Her crimson-haired sister rolled to the side. Her hair splayed out over the bed. Bubbles stared at the waves of orange-red in awe. Then she blinked, and her extended metal arm drifted back over Blossom's body...

* * *

_"What are you doing?"_

_"I think you deserve to see this," he stated flatly as he brought screen to life._

_There, inside the brightly glowing box, a coffin, surrounded by people. People she knew well. The people of Townsville__—__and her family__—__gathered at her wake. The hum of the screen was the only thing that told her she was still alive, as she watched her own casket lower into her own grave._

_She wept, the tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping from her chin. "It's horrible," she told him._

_He sneered. "If you are looking for sympathy, know that this is the most you will get from me." He lifted up her chin and stared her in the eyes. Though it surprised her, it did not intimidate her at all. "I show you this only so now you know how much the world you left loved you. And I can see in your eyes that now, you know how much the world hated me. So I have nothing left to lose."_

_He let her go abruptly and cut the power to the screen. "You are a tool—now and always, my dear—a means to an end. You should be prepared to never see your family again."_

_After a moment of pause, he turned his head and asked, "Do you want to keep watching?"_

_Restrained to the table, she could do nothing but nod._

_He turned the screen back on and left the room. She watched the ceremony draw to a close. She cried, but she could not forget. She would not. It would keep her going._

_She imagined the day when she would return, and tried to imagine the looks on their faces__._

* * *

Bubbles drew her head back, and felt her tears. She sat back, and dabbed them away with her hands.

Blossom moved and opened her eyes, almost rolling over, but found her vision on Bubbles' face, and stared up at her. She sat up a little, and looked at her more closely. "Bubbles," she whispered. "Why are you crying?"

Bubbles clenched her eyes shut and threw her arms around her sister, crying harder. "I don't know how you did it..."

Blossom almost fell onto the bed, taken aback by Bubbles' sudden flux of emotion. She didn't understand. "Did what?"

She sobbed harder, and struggled for the words "Made it." Sniffle. "You... you made it. I—I would've..."

"Bubbles..."

"But you're here. I'm... so glad you're here, Blossom. I—" Sniffle. "I love you so much."

The tears, already forming at the corner of Blossom's real eye, trickled down. "I love you too, Bubbles."

Blossom wrapped her arms lovingly around her sister, and held her tight.

Blossom and Bubbles soon got up, grabbed a new set of clothes and made their way to the bathroom. Blossom glanced at the arms; Bubbles had enough autonomic control to keep them hovering above the floor. Blossom nodded approvingly. And they kept hovering, calmly, as Blossom stepped inside and Bubbles waited outside for her to finish. She turned and looked over the banister to the living room and saw Buttercup, sleeping on the sofa. Buttercup was making a sad face and muttering in her sleep.

Bubbles craned her head... _What's she dreaming about?_ She closed her eyes, slowly concentrating.

* * *

_She held his hand. "Master, you can't die! I need you. I can't—"_

_The monk, her mentor, rasped as he spoke. "Buttercup, it is my time. All things must come to an end. Please, accept my death and continue living."_

_"No! No, I can't do this without you, I'm... I'm too angry! Bubbles—I don't want to do these things I'm doing, but I can't... I can't help it."_

_"We can _always_ control our actions." His breathing was deep and he looked up at her meaningfully. "Anger is a part of life. It is impossible to run away from it, as it will still find you, stronger than before. All things must be in balance. Anger tips the scale. First, admit that you are angry, and then focus the anger away."_

_"Yeah, but..." She turned her eyes away. "I just... I'm angry all the time, I—"_

_"Search, Buttercup. You must find that which makes you happy. Be it crime fighting, friendship, family... go out and find it, and free yourself of anger." He laughed, and then coughed, as it became too much for him. His breathing became more shallow._

_"Master!"_

_He held up one hand, barely, to ease her concern, and then took a breath, looking her in the eyes. "Go, Buttercup. You have the strength... to accomplish... any goal you... set out for. Use that strength—be good... and do not miss me."_

_"I can't—I mean, I'll miss you no matter what—Master!"_

_He rolled back and folded his hands over his chest, smiling, even as his breathing became impossibly slow._

_"Master! Please, don't leave me!"_

_He kept smiling, though, as she tried to bring him back. He was at peace._

_And then he took one final sharp breath, and was gone._

_She stared, blood draining from her face—he lay, lifeless, but smiling._

_She collapsed to her knees, and cried at his wake, as her tears dripped to the floor._

* * *

Bubbles cast her eyes downward. So that's what happened. She had never met the man in her vision, but she felt Buttercup's tears as if they were her own.

"...bles."

She clenched her eyes. It took all she had to hold back the tears.

"Bubbles?"

Her eyes snapped open as Blossom pressed her hand against her shoulder, and she looked up in surprise. She was mostly dry but for her hair, and had changed into a white tee and pink sweat pants.

"Are you all right? I said, it's your turn. Go ahead."

A beat passed before Bubbles blinked and nodded. "Right. Sorry, my mind was... elsewhere."

She went into the bathroom before Blossom could comment, and closed the door behind her.

Bubbles stepped into the tub and sank into the water. Warm. Soothing. Relaxing.

She was worried. About Blossom. About Buttercup. About the Professor.

_The sounds of his sobs brought the girl from upstairs in the living room, downstairs to the laboratory. She peered into the dim room, and saw him, sitting alone, head in his hands, at his workbench. The single fluorescent light in front of him cast a gloomy haze on the room. She frowned sadly as she came closer, hovering towards him._

_He looked at her out of the corner of his left eye, and turned to see her. "Bubbles."_

_She cast her eyes askance, trying to find something to say._

_His hands were folded and he looked like he was in pain. "I tried, Bubbles. I... I was just trying to be a good father, Bubbles. But I'm not... I'm no good. I can't—I can't even..."_

_A moment of silence followed. "I think you're a good father."_

_He looked at her, smiled, and pulled her into his arms, kissing her on the cheek. "I love you, Bubbles."_

_"I love you, too, Professor."_

_"...but I don't know what to do."_

_Her soft sniffles came through as she hugged him back._

_"I didn't know that she would react like that..."_

_"Professor..."_

_"I wasn't prepared for... for _this_..."_

_She opened her eyes, and for the first time looked at his workbench. Laying on its surface was a single black-and-white plastic sheet... an X-ray._

_A single broken rib._

Bubbles' clenched eyes opened even as her cool tears dripped into the hot water... the memory... she could feel her other arms twitching... she tried to stop them, but the shudders kept coming.

She glanced over her shoulder at the arms.

Her expression widened. "Oh—oh..."

* * *

After a moment of silence and idle thoughts, an _earthquake_ seemed to be happening in the bathroom, and then it was silent. She was about to speak, but Bubbles beat her to it. "Blossom? Could you... give me a hand?"

She blinked. "Yeah, sure." Opening the door and putting one foot into the room, her eyes went wide. What she saw surprised her, but she still walked the rest of the way in and shut the door behind her. The arms were waylaid across the room; one was hooked over the rail for the curtain; one lay over the toilet and went into the sink; another faked itself across the rug, and one was embedded in the wall, above the bathtub. There were dents in all surfaces of the walls. Soap, toothbrushes, razors and the like were strewn across the floor, the arms having knocked them all over. Bubbles sat in the tub, hugging herself, concealing her body with her own arms. Was she simply being modest, or was she not used to having family in the room while she bathed?

She almost seemed hesitant to speak. "I... can't get my back," she said after Blossom had closed the door. She was facing away. Even if she saw what her arms did, there was nothing she could do about it; Blossom knew that as well.

"Uhh... Sure. I'll help you." After a moment, Blossom found the soap on the floor and picked up a washcloth. "Lean forward."

Bubbles did as she was told. The arms barely shifted with her as she adjusted her posture. Blossom wet the cloth and rubbed it against the bar of soap. She looked up at Bubbles' bare back, trying to figure out just how she was supposed to clean the grid to which the arms were fixed. Finally, she touched the area experimentally with the wet, soapy rag.

Nothing happened.

She washed the top—around the first set of arms—and then further, expecting at any moment that an arm would suddenly swing to the side and knock her unconscious, but they never moved. And then she was finished, and she rinsed off the soap. Nothing had happened. Everything was fine. Apparently the area was waterproof. She wondered if the arms were rustproof as well, but certainly only whoever did this to her would know the answer to that. She started to wonder about the real purpose of the limbs, and why they'd been attached to her sister, and then...

Bubbles wiggled uncomfortably. "Blossom?"

"Oh!" She snapped her hand away and rinsed off the cloth in the tub. "All done."

She nodded. "I'm... fine now... I'll... just..."

"Yeah, you finish up." Blossom winced, and started to back out of the room.

"Blossom?"

She stopped, and turned. Bubbles looked over her shoulder at her, and smiled.

"Thanks."

She smiled back as she shut the door.

* * *

Blossom waited outside as Bubbles finished up in the bath. She looked over the banister again. Buttercup was gone from the couch. She looked around, but she didn't see her. Where did she go?

The door opened and Bubbles stepped out wearing her blue pajama bottoms with the orange sunflower pattern, but she had her towel pressed against her chest with a bit of cloth coming from between her arms. Her other arms floated shakily behind her, covering up her back. "I can't get my shirt on," she said, embarrassed, and extending the ball of torn cloth that was her shirt to Blossom.

Blossom sighed. "We're gonna have to help you figure that out. Hold out your arms."

She helped Bubbles dress, and then they headed downstairs.

The stairs thumped softly beneath Blossom's feet.

Buttercup closed the front door behind her after with yesterday's mail in her hand. She turned to the closet by the door and threw the bundle of papers carelessly inside. She passed the stairway, and her eyes met Blossom's. She all but jumped back, as if seeing a ghost. And then she relaxed, blushing. "Hey, Bloss."

Blossom's expression grew a little forlorn, with just a hit of irritation. "Morning, Buttercup." She looked towards the kitchen. "You didn't happen to make breakfast again today, did you?"

"Huh?" The idea seemed to come around to the front of her brain and her face twitched in surprise. "Oh, no. I didn't even start yet."

"Good, then it's my turn. You and Bubbles watch TV. _I'll_ make breakfast."

Blossom bounded towards the kitchen, and Bubbles shrugged in time with Buttercup.

Buttercup looked at Bubbles, and then behind her. She winced just slightly.

Bubbles returned her gaze, and faked a smile. "Good morning, Buttercup."

"Morning." She turned away and sat on the sofa tried to relax. But her mind was elsewhere.

_"Come on, Bloss, it's time for the show!"_

_"That wrestling thing?"_

_"It's the freakin' Doubleyew-Doubleyew-Eff! Come on! I've been waiting all month for this! They play cartoons all the time!"_

_"But I'm watching this._

_"Just change the channel!"_

_"Just watch it in the TV upstairs!"_

_"But this one is High-Def'!"_

_"Ugh. Fine. I'll go upstairs. Enjoy your show. Wrestling's fake anyway."_

_"It is so not fake! You suck! Go away!"_

_Blossom sighed and floated upstairs, and Bubbles followed behind her, looking back for only a moment, sadly, before turning back to Blossom._

_Buttercup changed the channel and glanced over her shoulder, watching them disappear into the bedroom._

_She turned back to the TV. She could always apologize later._

But she never did... never really thought it was that important... they were a family, after all. She could apologize now... but she knew it would seem silly. She kept quiet.

She tightened up her cheeks; she shook her head; she tried to concentrate on the TV; she sighed.

Bubbles frowned sympathetically, and all six of her arms drooped. She walked over and took a seat on the couch, and the arms draped themselves over the back almost naturally. Buttercup glanced at her and then back at the TV, and sat in silence. Idly, the two of them watched the screen. Buttercup's eyes shot to Bubbles for just a moment. She grew restless, and then handed Bubbles the remote. "Wanna watch something? I'm gonna take a shower."

She took it from her gently. "Sure. Thanks."

"Yeah," she replied and jumped off the couch, flying upstairs in a hurry. Closing the bathroom door behind her.

_Why is it so hard to be in the same room with her?_ She felt her hand scratching the back of her neck.

She disrobed and stepped in front of the mirror, and stared at her reflection. She touched her scars one after another, starting with the one on her left eye—

_A big, pink claw._

—and then on the side of her neck—

_It tore at her skin._

—she moved her hand back, to the patch below her shoulder—

_His teeth sank into her back._

—and then she stared at the ones on her right fist—

_She punched him in the mouth._

—she rubbed them in a daze. She shifted her gaze to her chest, at the one long scar that ran from her right shoulder to her left leg and around the knee.

_One huge swipe._

She still remembered that day... and what happened after. She shuddered. Pushed the unpleasant memory back.

Her hand drifted across the middle of her chest, over the scar, and she stopped. She dropped her chin to her chest and stared down at the edges. The other day, the edges were a little more ragged... now the edge had gone smoother. Was it healing?

She lifted her head and rolled her eyes. It was a scar. It wasn't going to heal.

She turned to the tub and adjusted the hot and cold. She tested it. No burning today.

In minutes she was out, dried, redressed, and downstairs. Blossom had just finished setting the table.

Her hand drifted across the middle of her chest, over the scar, and she stopped. She dropped her chin to her chest and stared down at the edges. The other day, the edges were a little more ragged... now the edge had gone smoother. Was it healing?

She lifted her head and rolled her eyes. It was a scar. It wasn't _going_ to heal.

She turned to the tub and adjusted the hot and cold. She tested it. No burning today.

In minutes she was out, dried, redressed, and downstairs. Blossom had just finished setting the table.

* * *

Blossom's breakfast was more palatable than Buttercup's last attempt, and the three of them ate happily, having a decent meal for the first time since they had gotten back home several days ago. Buttercup scarfed her eggs, crunched her bacon, and chugged her milk quickly, ravenously. Bubbles giggled, and Blossom couldn't bring up the will to chastise her. She was just happy that this could take place, that she could see it happen. Besides, they were home. It didn't really matter how she ate.

The window glowed behind her.

Blossom looked outside. "It's such a lovely day, isn't it?"

Buttercup looked outside. "It's pretty bright out, yeah."

Bubbles looked outside, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Look! A butterfly!"

Blossom saw it and watched it flit by, but Buttercup paid no mind, and looked away.

Bubbles' expression changed and she glanced at Buttercup, but remained silent.

Blossom noticed the moment, frowned, and then looked at the ceiling in thought. "Hey guys, what do you say we go out today?"

Bubbles' eyes went wide and stared at her in shock. Buttercup's was more of dull surprise. "You sure about that, Blossom? You've been... well, dead... for a long time."

"Yeah, I know. I think it's time to let everyone know I'm back. I'm looking forward to surprising everyone. Especially Miss Bellum."

Buttercup grinned. "Yeah, right! Hang on, I'll go get ready." Scarfing the rest of her food, she flew upstairs.

Blossom looked at Bubbles for the first time since she had made her suggestion. She did not look remotely happy. "Bubbles?"

Bubbles—looking away, her hand pressed against her lips, her eyes cast downward... she looked pale.

"You don't want to go outside?"

She shook her head quickly.

"Hm." _I guess it can't be helped._ "It's okay, I don't really blame you. If you don't wanna go, then I won't either."

"Oh, no! I—"

"What?"

Blossom looked over, and Bubbles turned, to Buttercup. She had returned, and her expression had gone sour. "Why don't you wanna go?"

Bubbles looked at Blossom.

"Buttercup, she's obviously hurt over the arms. She's—"

"Oh, come on! Yeah, they're pretty creepy, but so what? What does she care?"

Blossom glowered at her. "Don't you think if some guy experimented on you, you'd want to keep hidden?"

She scoffed. "So do you wanna stay home, too?"

She shot out of her chair, slamming her hands on the table. "Buttercup!"

"Didn't you wanna let everyone know you're alive? You haven't seen anyone in years! Everyone thinks you're _dead_." She paused. "And you _look_ dead. You could use some sun."

Blossom scoffed. "I'm not leaving without her."

Buttercup rolled her eyes, threw up her arms and marched towards the door. "Ya ain't keepin' me in here. Everyone knows _I'm_ alive..." She opened the door, and before they knew she was gone, the door had already slammed shut.

Blossom sat there, seething, staring at the door. The silence was deafening.

Bubbles looked over at her. "Please don't call her that."

They froze. Blossom, and Bubbles an instant later in turn. Bubbles gulped.

After a long pause: "I didn't say anything."

"...No, you didn't."

"Out loud, anyway."

"...I know."

Blossom's heart thumped wildly. "Is it... hard?"

She shook her head. "Not really. You and Buttercup are pretty... uh... loud."

Blossom looked away. "Can you... even stop?"

"Uh..." she sighed. "Well... I get distracted, but..."

"...you don't really stop. I mean, you haven't, at least."

"Well, it's really hard right now. You're... um... really... _fast_. And getting... _faster_."

"Am I... hurting you? Has it ever hurt?"

"No, you're not. It hasn't hurt at all... um... yet."

"Does Buttercup know?"

She shook her head.

"Hm." She thought about it. "It's probably better that she doesn't... at least not yet, huh?"

Bubbles looked up and smiled.

She smiled back. "So... what do you wanna do today?"

After a moment of thought, she looked at Blossom and her smile widened.

* * *

Buttercup floated on her back, in the clouds, frowning darkly. "Unbelievable." Her heartbeat was in her ears and in her eyes. Sighing, she swung out at the cloud around her, knocking away the cold immaterial vapor.

"...eeeelp!"

As she hit the cloud, the sound came through. She turned, wide-eyed, rolled out of the cloud—free-falling to Earth. With a blast of cold air, in front of an old lady laying on the grass by the street. "Are you okay?"

The old lady looked up at her fearfully for just a moment, then her eyes shifted, and she pointed down the street. "That man stole my purse!"

Buttercup turned, seeing the fugitive, and sped towards him. As he ran, he looked over his shoulder.

"AHHH!" He dropped the purse in fright and ran faster.

She stopped over the purse, watching the criminal get away. Looking down, she saw the purse. She picked it up—

_After Blossom died, Buttercup patrolled on her own. The same lady with the same purse. Buttercup handed it over._

_The old lady was afraid and unsure. "Th-thank you... uh, B-Buttercup." She shuffled away in a hurry, as if afraid to be anywhere near her. She wouldn't even look her in the eye._

_"Pfuh," Buttercup muttered. "Next time do it yourself."_

She shook her head and sped back. "Here." She handed it to the lady, who dug through, making sure that nothing was missing and clutched it to her chest. "Oh... Thank you, Buttercup. Thank you."

_"Thank you, girls. How would you like some bubblegum?"_

_"Heck yeah. Thanks, lady."_

Yeah... they had all had to deal with this same old lady a bunch of times. Was she just unlucky with guys stealing her purse?

And the criminal... she knew she had let him get away, and she felt bad about it... but she had made this old lady happy. For some reason, she felt... perfectly fine about it.

She hesitated briefly. "Take care," she said, and flew away.

Moments later, she sat, watching the city roll around her atop the revolving restaurant. How was she supposed to feel? She hadn't felt like this since... back then.

She rolled back on to her hands, staring up at the clouds, and thought back.

She nodded. "Good times."


	11. Chapter 2, Part 5

Part 5: Faded Watercolors

* * *

The hair was wet, and then it was stained. The stain was moved, and then was itself stained, mixing the colors to make something new. The new stain—tan—pressed against the paper, and spread. The brush slid back and forth as the paint stuck to the page. In the water it went, and then it was back. Green. The tan color was highlighted with green around the edge, and then it was back in the water. Black. It made the shape of her hair, and slipped ever so gently to make a mouth. And then it was rinsed. The hand moved the brush back and forth from the page to the water, and from the water to the paint, and then back to the page. Buttercup's face formed in the creamy paint on the paper. Her body followed, and then the monster, as she traded blows with it, completing the picture. It was the first of many smaller pictures on the page.

Blossom looked over. "Wow, that's pretty good, Bubbles."

She looked proud. "Really?"

"Yeah. Looks like you've been practicing."

She smiled.

Blossom's painting was coming along slowly. It was the start of a self-portrait. She started coloring in the eye, and the back of her mind brought the memory forward...

* * *

_She opened her eyes for the first time since the procedure began._

_"Welcome back," he said flatly as he noticed her movement._

_She looked around. Eyes. She had two eyes._

_"Your new eye has been installed. How does it feel?"_

_She tested it, moving her head side to side and keeping her eyes still. "It's kinda weird," she remarked._

_"In what way?"_

_"It feels... it doesn't feel bad, but it doesn't feel like I'm moving it at all. There's this whirring noise."_

_"That is normal. Anything else?"_

_"It's... it feels like... like I'm looking through someone else's eye."_

_"If that is all, then there is nothing wrong. You will get used to it." He put away his tools. "Come, it is time for dinner."_

_She swung her legs over the ledge and walked with him into the next room._

* * *

Blossom lifted her eyes and noticed for the first time that Bubbles was looking at her quizzically.

Oops. "Sorry, Bubbles."

"No, it's... it's okay." Still, she looked a bit unnerved.

Blossom shrugged, and glanced at her sister's picture. "Hey, is that... Mojo?"

Bubbles moved her hand away from the page. Mojo's furry features were beginning to form. She stared at it blankly.

"Do you remember drawing that?"

"...Kinda."

"Weird." She shook her head gently. "It's all right. Doesn't bother me."

Bubbles grinned nervously, but finished Mojo's head. He was laughing maniacally.

* * *

Buttercup could see for miles around up here; the cityscape was amazing. She scratched the back of her head. _It's been such a long time._ Since she had felt at ease. Since she had peace.

"It's kinda unnerving," she muttered.

And then her moment of peace was broken. Something brought her attention to the corner, just down the street from the building atop which she was sitting. A shady transaction. Even from where she sat, she could see the money... and the drugs.

With a quick thrust, she hopped off the building, and spiraled down to the street below, speeding towards the two of them menacingly. "Hey! Drop 'em!"

The buyer threw his hands up and let go of the packs he had bought, but the dealer lunged past the corner, trying to get away.

Briefly, Buttercup stopped, burned the drugs on the sidewalk with her heat rays, before flying again, after the dealer. As she got closer, he shot an open palm at her, spraying a fine powder into the air.

Minutes later, with the white powder brushed off, she dragged him into the police station, and the cops booked him without delay.

The Chief of Police came up to thank her in person. "Thanks for your help, Buttercup. I hate these druggies. He's been selling this 'Shroud' for about three months now. This new drug, pretty potent. People been coming in all jacked up from it. What about the buyer?"

"I burned the drugs, but he got away."

He clicked his tongue. "No matter, he'll probably try again somewhere else. Good work. This one's been Hell dealing with on the street. Spreading like wildfire amongst the poorer districts." He was implying the destroyed sector. She rolled her eyes, and he kept on: "Oh, but it's easy enough to spot once it's in the system, though. Delirium, dementia, synesthesia, emotional overload... People going crazy on street corners. Stuff like that is hard to miss." He regarded her with distant concern when she didn't reply. "Enough about that, though. Everyone's been wondering: Bubbles. You found her yet?"

She turned to him with a start. "Oh." He was asking about Bubbles. Guilt rose in her: the city still loved its heroes, despite it all. He probably wasn't exaggerating about the people. But should she tell him? There wasn't any harm, was there? "Yeah, I found her, she's back at home. She's... fine." The chief looked like he was going to ask more, but she shook her head. He was making her feel awful. She needed to get back home. The guilt kept rising. She needed to talk to them. To her sisters. She had to make things right. She excused herself curtly and was in the skies before she knew she was even there.

* * *

The silence was broken by Bubbles. "Buttercup!"

She jumped up even as the "What?" left Blossom's lips and her arms swung forward, over Blossom's head, vaulting towards the window. Deftly, she opened the window just as something black and green shot through the space and into her arms. The tackle Buttercup gave should have knocked Bubbles across the room, but the metal arms rooted her in place.

Buttercup's pupils were dilated. "...Forgot to slow down. Can't forget you..."

Bubbles pulled her to the floor gently. "Buttercup! What's wrong?"

Buttercup fumbled for Bubbles' shoulder. "I was fighting crime... I'm so... You can't just..."

"Buttercup, are you—I mean, you sound—" She looked at Blossom. "Something is very wrong... She... uh... _sounds fuzzy._"

Blossom frowned. "Buttercup. Are you sick?"

Buttercup shook her head, and gripped Bubbles' shirt tighter. "No doctors. No ambulance. Don't call... anyone."

"Okay, all right. You'll be fine. No ambulance." Even as she tried to calm her sister down, she was beginning to cry. "Blossom... She's faint... Distant. I mean... like she's _wobbly_. It's hard to hear..."

Buttercup's grip was so tight that they could hear the fabric ripping in her hand. She spoke loudly, almost yelling. "Sorry I'm quiet! When I beat the guy up... maybe him... the guy had..." Heavy emotion rocked across her face. "Forget it! It's not... it's not important! You! Bubbles... sorry. I'm... didn't mean to..."

She blinked even as the water screwed up her vision. "I'm not mad at you. Just stay quiet. We're gonna help you. Okay?"

She nodded weakly and let go. "...yeah." She rubbed her forehead, staring at the ceiling. "Oh, _man_." After a moment, she simply passed out.

"Buttercup!"

* * *

They took turns watching her, making sure she was okay through the night. Blossom spent her time in deep concentration. What could it all mean? What sort of substance could do this to a _Powerpuff Girl_? And so _quickly_? Maybe Buttercup would start muttering again... The information was limited, but it could be used. Dissect it, make it work.

Some sort of drug dealer, obviously. And it must be a new substance, developed recently, there was no way it had been available before this year...

She stayed by Buttercup's side, thinking deeply, listening to every tiny sound Buttercup made. As midnight approached, Blossom rubbed her eyes. She shook her head, and forced herself to relax. Her mind went slack as she jerked herself out of concentration. She was tired. Too tired to keep going. It was Bubbles' turn, and her sister rose from the bed as she turned her head just to look.

"I didn't really sleep." Bubbles said wryly, though her concern was still obvious in her reddened eyes. And without stopping, she said, "Don't feel bad."

Blossom chuckled. "Okay, occasionally, I'd like to _chip in_ to our conversations."

Bubbles looked at her with sudden seriousness. "Blossom. You're _fast_."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"It's fine... but... just now, this last hour? Only in the last few minutes... It was like you _let_ me in..."

"Huh?"

"You weren't helping me sleep..." Bubbles said it gently, making sure Blossom knew she took no offense. "Like a waterfall... sometimes I got... uh... _splashed_. 'Buttercup' happened a lot. I happened a lot too. No!" Bubbles held up her hands. "No. Just relax, Blossom. Don't worry about it. _Please._ Just take a nap. You've earned it. I know you have. I _really_ do. And you _really_ need it."

Blossom nodded heavily. Bubbles was so right that it made her even more sleepy.

The bed was just the right sort of soft...

* * *

She was using her easel and had switched from a sheet of paper to a frame with a new canvas over it. The watercolors danced across the page vibrantly as she transferred the images from her mind to the cloth. It was... slow, and holding her arms up made it feel kind of tiring. Finally, her arms slumped, and she looked down. Her flesh brushed against the metal. It came up at the merest trace of thought, floating before her. She put the brush against the metal hand and it held. It bobbed up and down at her behest. It still looked so strange... but the feeling was almost natural.

Carefully, she took the brush in the bionic arm, and traced it over the page. It was... easier. A lot easier. She kept painting, now a little faster. Easier. The arm pulled back just enough to dab the pallet, wipe off the excess, and then brought itself back to the page. She smiled.

* * *

She was still painting when Buttercup woke up. She lay there, groggy She still felt awful, and she heard the sound of the brush sliding across the paper, and turned, and saw Bubbles, and hardly noticed the other arms moving. She rolled her head back to the pillow, and breathed softly. She was already feeling like crap... no sense dragging Bubbles into it. _Let her paint,_ she decided. _I'm fine._

The sound of painting continued. Buttercup just listened, and let her mind float inside her head. She had been so mean to her. She wanted to do something positive, but...

_"Who needs ya!" She jumped up and out of the school, shaking her head to clear it of the debris that got stuck in her hair. The monster, visible even from where she was, towered over most of the buildings, and was sharpening its claws against them. Its alligator maw opened and let out a screeching roar, and stomped rapidly on the ground while propped on its tail. She could hear people screaming. As she shot forward, it turned and swung at her in the air. It was fast, and the blow connected. Her body skidded against the ground, breaking the asphalt in the middle of the road. Finally, she limply rolled to a stop. One arm moved out, then the other, and pushed her up, glaring at the beast as it comically danced in place and clapped its scaly hands, and ran towards her._

_Her anger still flaring, as the monster reared towards her, she shot up, right through its neck like a supersonic bullet. Blood poured from its throat and it clamped its palm over one side of the hole, as Buttercup circled and shot through it again. But still her rage was not abated, and as the beast began to fall, she latched on to its body and plowed her fists into its collarbone, shattering it. But she kept going, even as the beast stopped breathing. Her arms moved faster, and she grit her teeth, clenched her eyes, and screamed powerfully as she ripped into its dead body._

_Her rage was not gone. She threw her arms up and smashed her hands into the soft flesh of the beast, letting out all her anger at once. Those that had been in the immediate vicinity watched her as she stopped beating it, breathing hard, as the beat in her chest grew faster and faster as she kept seething. She looked up at them—all these people—staring at her—she glared—reporters—they were there to expose her—her rage was a rating—she hated all of it—so much that she couldn't breathe—barely think._

_She barely remembered what happened next. Little flashes, here and there, and it was... bad._ Real _bad._

She lifted her arm and wiped her sweaty forehead. Where was she supposed to channel her anger?

"Buttercup?"

She turned her head. Bubbles, holding the paintbrush in one of her metal arms, was staring at her. The arm set the brush down on the easel, and Bubbles walked over, kneeling by the sofa. "Are you okay?"

Buttercup stared at her, searching for something to say. She wasn't prepared to talk to her. What would she say? After this long, this much torment, this much pain, all that they had been through... what did she say?

"Thanks," she said—in the end, that was all she _could_ say.

Bubbles smiled. "It's okay, Buttercup. As long as you're okay, I'm glad."

Buttercup smiled, a little less enthusiastically. She glanced over her shoulder, at the easel. "What are you drawing?"

Bubbles reached towards it with one of the long bionic arms before she could stop herself, and it suddenly dropped to the floor with a deft thud, and Buttercup saw Bubbles staring back at her, hands over her mouth, looking afraid and guilty.

She blinked and tried to understand what just happened. Bubbles was... afraid. Afraid she would hate her? Was _that_ it?

"Hey, it's cool. They're _your_ arms. You can do what you want with 'em." She still didn't like looking at them.

Bubbles' eyes turned away, and then she looked back at her easel. The arm she had used before twitched, and tried to rise, but went limp.

She snorted. "Never mind." She rolled over in irritation, and stared at the couch cushions. "I'm fine now. Go to sleep."

After a moment of silence, Buttercup pushed her face into the cushions, grimacing. _Oh man... I did it again! What the Hell is wrong with me?_

_

* * *

_Bubbles sat on the floor, sadly, and then stood, and joined what looked like a sleeping Blossom, facing away on the bed.

The communications breakdown had, however, not gone unnoticed in its severity and volume. Blossom opened her real eye, and glanced over her shoulder at her. _Be strong, Bubbles. We can try again tomorrow._

Bubbles turned, meeting her eye in sadness. She sniffled and lay down, pressing her forehead against Blossom's back, whispering, "Thank you."

Blossom smiled even in the sadness she felt. As she looked up past the headboard, she could see the easel that Bubbles had been working on. Buttercup—even down to the scars—plowing through a giant monster; Bubbles was slamming a metal arm into Mojo's shocked face; Blossom had a visor, much like Cyclops from that show "X-Men." And though she had seen Bubbles start off with vibrant colors, as the brushes danced across the page, all the colors were... weaker towards the bottom. Faded.

She closed her eye slowly. They could start to fix things tomorrow.

* * *

Buttercup stretched, and she yawned, and rolled over.

And then she had an up-close and personal view of the floor.

It didn't hurt of course, but it was surprising nonetheless.

She pushed herself up and shook her head vigorously. Her eyes rolled around the room. Morning. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and parted with a wet smack. She stood and stretched, popping the muscles in her neck as she rolled her head from side to side.

Morning. She put her hand to her stomach, and tried to figure everything out at once.

She turned. Bubbles. Asleep. The arms.

She gasped. Last night. Why did she do that?

How to make it better? Think.

_Think!_

She shook her head and took a step forward.

Her foot touched something. One of the arms.

Bubbles stirred and rolled over to see. She whispered. "Morning, Buttercup."

"Mm—" She tried to speak and stopped. She looked away and thought. "Want to... help me make breakfast?"

Bubbles smiled.

* * *

A new day came with new ambitions. For her, it was the idea of change that made it possible to proceed. But the change was not to happen all at once; it had to be slow and progressive. Even as she opened her eyes, she was aware that the ones she hoped to change were not in the room. They had fallen asleep in the same room, but now that she was awake and opened her eyes to see, they weren't there anymore. Where did they go?

As she breathed in, the smell of food caught her senses, and directed her out of her bedroom and downstairs, where she finally saw them: Bubbles and Buttercup; eating breakfast. Buttercup was smiling—albeit nervously—and Bubbles had a fairly dry smile, too.

"Mornin' Bloss'," Buttercup called out. "Have some French toast! It's really good!"

Bubbles had a mouth full of food, but she nodded assent.

When she was properly seated at the table, she grabbed her fork and cut off a piece of the toast. It was dark golden-brown and sprinkled lightly with cinnamon and dribbled with the viscous goodness that was maple syrup. It looked good, and as it turned out, tasted delicious.

"This is good," she chirped. She glanced at Bubbles and opened her mouth, but instead turned to Buttercup. "Your cooking's really improved."

Buttercup blushed and looked away, scratching her head. "Actually... Bubbles... helped. A lot."

Bubbles and Blossom shared a smile and kept eating, and soon all three of them were finished. Bubbles took the dishes and washed them by hand, and then put them into the drying rack with her metal arms.

Buttercup watched her do this and nodded approvingly. She leaned in and whispered to Blossom, "She's really getting the hang of those, huh?"

She smiled and told her, "They're _her_ arms. She can do what she wants with them, right?"

Buttercup's eyes turned to Blossom guiltily, and then to Bubbles, washing the dishes with her back to them.

"It's okay, Buttercup. I can tell she isn't mad. She just need some support right now. Try to be nice, for her sake?"

Buttercup looked down guiltily. After a moment of silence, she drew a strong breath and let it out, and smiled. "Yeah." She looked away, but opened her mouth to speak. "He—hey, Bubbles?"

She kept washing the dishes, but looked over her shoulder. "Yeah?"

Buttercup's lips tightened as if unwilling to let the words come out, but she forced them apart. "I'm... sorry about... last night... and—and... well, everything, you know?"

* * *

Bubbles faced forward, the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Even though she had expected her to say it, it still made her happy to hear it. She put the last dish in the rack and turned around to face her.

And the metal arms slammed carelessly into the drying dishes. She made an "oops" face, and looked over her shoulder, while Blossom and Buttercup stared in surprise. Finally, Bubbles turned to face them, grief stricken.

Blossom's eyes turned towards Buttercup, trying to gauge whether she was upset by this.

She was. "Oh, come on! Can't you do—"

Blossom quickly put a hand on her shoulder, and she went silent, staring back at her with wide eyes. She turned away abruptly, pursing her lips. Finally, stiffly, she grumbled, "It's cool. They're just plates. We can get more."

The smile Bubbles and Blossom shared this time was sad.

"So what are we doing today?" Buttercup asked, as if to change the subject.

Blossom looked at Bubbles.

Bubbles looked back at her.

Blossom nodded her head in Buttercup's direction.

Bubbles took the hint, and tried to sound nonchalant as she spoke. "We could break stuff."

Blossom's eyes went wide. Buttercup raised her head curiously, staring blankly at nothing.

Bubbles looked over at her. "Like, let off some steam, you know?"

Buttercup looked back at her with a strange sort of curious half-smile. "Man, it's like you're right inside my head."

"Seriously?"

"Wait, hang on. No." Blossom sat back, left hand in a halting gesture, the other pressed against her forehead.

Buttercup turned to her. "What's wrong with breaking stuff? I mean, it's fun, and—"

"How about we try to fix the holes we've already made in the house?"

Buttercup folded her arms and looked away. "Man, it's a waste of time."

"The house should look nice, just in case the Professor comes home."

"Feh. He hasn't been home in ages."

Bubbles spoke up. "He was home a couple months ago." Blossom and Buttercup turned to her. "He was here... after you... went into your... uh..." She balked, looking away.

Buttercup stared at her for another moment and then shrugged. "So he comes home every so often. Not like he's a frequent flier or anything."

"But he does come home?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Buttercup sighed in restraint. "Look, even if we wanted to fix up the house, there's no way we could! There's no paint, no... no... uh..."

"Plaster."

"Yeah, that. We don't have any plaster or tools or—"

"You have plastic."

"We—huh?"

"Where's Professor's credit card?"

Bubbles blinked and turned to Buttercup.

"It's... I have it. It's here," she said guardedly.

There was a very tense pause.

Blossom narrowed her eyes. "You just don't want to have to work."

Buttercup looked insulted. "What do you mean by that? You trying to say I'm lazy?"

After a moment, Blossom nodded. "Yeah, I guess that _is_ what I'm saying."

Buttercup glared back at her for another second, then flew up to the bedroom and came back with a vinyl wallet, black, with a picture of a yellow flower on the front. She grumbled, "Make a list."

Blossom half-grinned, and she did.

Soon the door closed noisily, leaving the two of them to relax a little.

Bubbles glanced at Blossom.

Blossom smiled. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?"

* * *

She was in line, finally, sour and tapping her arm impatiently. In front, an elderly white man, wrinkled and withered, liver-spotted and gray. In his hand, a blue basket with the store's logo on the side. Every few seconds he would steal glances at her and at the load behind her.

In line behind her, a woman in her late twenties wearing faded blue jeans, a green sweater and no makeup. A large bag of fertilizer, some seeds and a few bags of topsoil rested in her shopping cart.

Buttercup barely noticed anything around her as she stood just in front of her hand truck. She had everything. Everything on the list. It filled the bed of the truck entirely. So much stuff. Plaster, tools, tape, paints, brushes, concrete mix, disposable coveralls... everything Blossom had written down.

How much time had passed since she got into the store? She wasn't wearing a watch. It was some time around noon, by the looks of it. From there, she could see the sunlight coming through the double-doors leading outside. Too bright. Much too bright.

She sighed.

"Uh... Buttercup?"

She looked up. The middle-aged fellow behind the counter was waving to her, trying to get her attention.

She pulled her cart up but didn't speak. She was just waiting for it to be over.

He scanned all the items on the bed of the hand truck, talking nervously as his hand-held scanner blipped up each item. "Looks like you're... getting ready for a major project or something. Right?"

She turned her eyes towards him but didn't answer.

"Right, okay, awesome. Concrete mix..." Blip. "There. That's everything. Your total is—"

"Here." She pulled the card out and thrust it into his face. He took it from her. "Can I see some ID?" They stared at one another for another second. She narrowed her eyes just a little, and he swiped it quickly.

Approved.

The receipt printed and she signed it.

She pulled the flatbed effortlessly out of the store and pulled it off to the side.

In the gazebo by the entrance—the smoking pit—one of the employees called out, "You need some help getting' that home? We make deliveries, you know."

"Nah, I got it," she told him offhandedly, as she crawled underneath and lifted it into the air.

"Hey!" He dropped his cigarette and ran out into the parking lot, as if he could somehow catch her before she left. "You can't take that! We—"

"I'm gonna bring it back, moron! Sheesh."

Mouth agape, he watched her disappear past the trees. Breathlessly, he muttered, "Well, yes, I... suppose it's all right, I mean... she is Buttercup, after all, no... sense making a... huge fuss and all..." He trailed off, muttering to himself as he turned and walked back to the store.

* * *

Blossom took a card from the top of the deck and added it to her hand. "Your turn."

"Erm..." Bubbles glanced from her cards to Blossom and back several times before she finally made her decision. "Do you have any... threes?"

"Aw." She handed over three cards. Bubbles took them gingerly and made a book of four cards, setting it off to the side.

She looked away and muttered, "Your turn."

Blossom smiled and glanced at her cards.

"Go Fish," Bubbles said automatically. Almost instantly, her eyes shot open.

Blossom chuckled. "Don't worry. You'll get it."

She whimpered. "But it's..."

She reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard, but if you keep working on it, eventually—"

With a thunderous crash, a Mack truck fell out of the sky and fell, nose-first, into their driveway.

At least that's what it sounded like. Buttercup appeared inside after a moment and then closed the door behind her. "I'm back. Where do you—"

"Don't... _do_ that!" Blossom had thrown her arms around Bubbles instinctively, her heart thumping loudly in her chest. Bubbles eyed her with concern. She looked down at the floor, at the deck of cards, and slid away from her sister. She breathed heavily. "I just... Whew. It's been a little while. Let's... let's get everything inside."

Bubbles smiled sheepishly and nodded.

Buttercup stared at them blankly for a moment, and shrugged. "Sure, why not."

* * *

He sighed deeply through his nose. "Can't be done," he answered curtly.

She looked up, nearly glaring. "What?"

He tapped the paper on the table with one finger. "Your proposal? It's unacceptable. It can't be done. At least, not that fast."

"Mister Wilson," Miss Sara Bellum began, staring at him incredulously, but then seemed unsure how to proceed. "What do you mean, 'it can't be done?'"

"It's English, Mayor. The only language I know how to speak."

Anyone else would have been sorely angered by this, but Miss Bellum kept her cool. "Never in the history of G.U.A.R.D. has there been a problem fulfilling a deadline like this. A monster would destroy a building and you would have it fixed practically overnight. So I'm finding it difficult to hear that you 'can't' do something. What aren't you telling me? Did something happen to G.U.A.R.D.?" She paused, waiting for him to reply. "Well?" He simply stared back at her, a business-like grin across his lips. She read his expression like a filthy magazine article.

Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed, all in one motion. "All right... what are your demands?"


	12. Chapter 2, Part 6

**A/N: Hey guys, been quite a while since I uploaded anything. Sorry for the wait, here's the next part. I'll upload the next one within a week.**

Part Six - Sliding Walls

Julian Stepps, CEO of Stepps Enterprises, more commonly known to some only as Boss, walked through a seedy warehouse, about a mile from the docks. Nearly three hundred undocumented workers were grinding and blending, diluting and distilling, and he observed their work with some interest and approval. He was flanked by two thuggish Hispanic bodyguards wearing suits and sunglasses. They followed him up to the double-doors, and he pushed them open. The stairs led up to the office, overlooking everything. Before they even got inside, a pale fellow wearing a knit cap, a windbreaker, ratty jeans and sneakers jumped to his feet from a chair, running up to him. "Boss! Boss! Things messed up dude!"

One of his men on the street. Good worker, never questioned orders, always got the job done; an asset to his goals. Otherwise an annoyance. He held up his hands, waving them gently. "Now calm down, Paul, get your thoughts in line. Now, what's the problem?"

"Lenny been skunked by the Emms, Boss!"

Stepps was never really one for dialect or slang. "Try that one more time, in English?"

He paused, and cried, "Lenny got the emerald cuffs fer peddlin'!"

He frowned, jutting his chin. "_Real_English, Paul."

Paul stopped, sighed, and took a breath. "Leonard has been apprehended by Buttercup and remitted to the local constabulary for his transgressions against the district commonwealth on charges of dealing in illicit substances."

"Ah." He nodded in understanding. "You should have just said that, then." He walked past him to his office, and continued. "So Leonard was taken in. Big deal."

"But Boss!" He followed Stepps, flanked by his two bodyguards, and stood on the other side of his desk as Boss sank into his expensive, Corinthian leather office chair. "It is a big—we gotta—I mean, y'know, Lenny's a trove o' smarts, he could trump all our biz to Hell!"

He looked up, blinked twice, trying to decipher the dialect. "You mean he knows too much, and he might leak information."

Paul faltered. "Yeah, that's it."

"So? Grab a silencer and take him out."

"What? But... why don't we just bust him outta jail?"

Stepps gave him a blank stare, and spoke slowly, so he would understand. "We're dealing in a new, powerful drug. The FBI is going to be interested, and will want to know where he got it and who he works for. We can't draw attention. So kill him."

"I—" Paul stared back, ashen-faced. He looked positively ill, and paler than usual, if that was possible. He took a shallow breath, and finally spoke. "I understand... sir. I'll... I'll take care of it." He turned and slipped past the doors slowly.

"Good man," Stepps whispered to his back.

He sat comfortably into his chair, and rubbed a sore spot on the side of his neck idly. He looked over some receipts from a recent overseas transaction with interest.

After a little bit of time had passed, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, glanced at the caller ID, and answered. "Good morning, Mister Wilson. How did it go?" 

* * *

_You can do it, Bubbles._

Bubbles glanced up at Blossom before returning her gaze to her cards. Even if Blossom had that much confidence in her, she couldn't help but feel defeated before she tried. How to begin? Buttercup sat on Bubbles' left, Blossom sat on Buttercup's left, and Bubbles sat on Blossom's left. In the space between the three of them lay a deck of cards. Bubbles arms were coiled loosely behind her.  
It was Bubbles' turn. She wasn't trying, but she could hear it, loudly. Strongly. She tried, but failed. It was no use.

_Don't pick Six. Don't pick Six. Don't pick Six_

Bubbles glanced up at Buttercup. Bubbles furrowed her brow and stared down at her cards. She had a Six. Buttercup had two. Part of her wanted to beat her—she had been so mean. But she couldn't hate her sister, and didn't want to win for something as petty as a grudge. But it was what Blossom told her to do. If she knew one of them had a card in her hand, she should ask for it. But she didn't want to win... she wanted to play fair. She couldn't just cheat. And that's what she was doing. Cheating. It made her head hurt and her stomach sick.

She clenched her back teeth and swallowed hard. Finally, she drooped her head and said, "Buttercup, do you have any Sixes?"

"Aw-ugh!" She pulled two Sixes from her hand and handed them to Bubbles.

Buttercup's turn. She took one look at her cards and said "Bloss', you got any Twos?"

"Go fish."

Blossom's mind was calm—she didn't care if she lost—and Buttercup's was tense—really wanted to win—how could she shut them out? They were so _loud_. Buttercup's hand was an Ace, a Two, two Fours, a Nine, a Five and an Eight. Blossom's was Three, Nine, two Kings and one Queen. Bubbles had three Sixes, two Sevens, a Nine, three Jacks, and one Ace.

She had tried everything she could think of. She had tried to just not listen, but it was there, in the back of her mind. It was like a room filled with light; blinding, but just closing her eyes didn't make it go away. She couldn't stop it.

_Jack._

Bubbles stifled a groan, but looked at Blossom with a strained look on her face. Blossom offered her some consoling thoughts, but otherwise kept quiet and looked at her cards.

"Bubbles, do you have any Nines?"

Bubbles nodded and passed her Nine to Blossom. 

* * *

John sat in first class, reading the forms he downloaded from his bank's website. There had been some recent activity on Buttercup's card. One two days ago at the grocery store, and one today, at a place called "Bards." A hardware store, if he remembered correctly.

He wondered if someone had stolen her card. Buttercup didn't go shopping at hardware stores... did she? And if she did, for what reason? Not to mention the sheer volume of things she would have had to buy for that much money. He lightly shook his head. No, she probably wouldn't shop there; someone had to have stolen it.

...But the possibility wasn't nonexistant. He sank back into his seat. What to do...?

"Would you like a drink, sir?"

A very lovely flight attendant a pushed the drink cart up alongside his seat, and he regarded her lightly before asking for a gin and tonic. With the drink in his hand he sipped at it gingerly, taking in the harsh flavor of juniper as it met his tongue. It made him wince, but it was what he needed, and he took another sip. Setting the glass aside, he opened up his laptop and looked at the screen. A moment passed before he saw the icon, blinking in the corner. An Email? It was from Jack Wednesday, and it had just arrived. He puzzled only a moment before clicking it open.

**FROM: Wednesjr .gov Jack R. Wednesday, Investigation**  
**TO: jhu94**  
**SUB: Upcoming Townsville Leave**

**Professor Utonium:**

**Regarding your leave of absence, there are several things that you need to know about. Ideas and specifics. Unfortunately, those things I can't reveal. And the point of this Email, you may be asking, is what? Well, while I can't use any specific language on the wire, there are some details that you might mark as interesting. How would I mark them as you marking them interesting? I would mark them that way because they almost left me speechless. Me, of all people, without a concise word to give about the nature of the leave you will be experiencing with your family. Your family being the Powerpuff Girls. I hope you have a nice time.**

**-Wednesday**

John hadn't been able to read it all the way through before he shook his head and began reading again. After he had, he paused and took another sip, winced, and read it again. And then he read it again. And even as he read it once more, he knew that there was no hidden message.

He took another sip of his gin and winced.

He did that some times sent little messages to colleagues across government Email just to see what they could get away with; spelling out words or phrases like "carpet bomb" with every third letter. He grinned as he remembered it, but then shook his head clear and looked back at the letter. Jack wasn't giving him a code. Then what was he saying? Was he just trying to freak him out?

He dismissed that idea. Jack wasn't a prankster. He was as straight-laced and hard-up as they come. Was it... simply a warning, then? Telling him that yes, something is unusual, and yes, it will shock you?

He took another sip. He winced. 

* * *

She winced. There was a harsh, bitter taste in the back of her throat. The girls were looking at one another or else looking at their cards. The room was silent for all but one of them. She was concentrating so hard. It was just two voices, but they overlapped, and cascaded, unceasing, uncensored, unable to be stopped. She clutched the cards in her hand. It was all she could do to keep herself from breaking down and crying.

"It's your turn, Bubbles."

She glanced up at Buttercup. She knew every card in her hand. Every time her sister looked at her cards, each of them rang out in her mind instantly. Every time her eyes passed over her cards, every time she thought the sound seemed to shake the room. It was a whirlwind she wanted to scream. Instead, she clenched her teeth and pulled her frustration inward, trying to hide her distress.

Buttercup kept poking. "You're not trying to _read_them, are you?"

Blossom looked like she were about to say something, but then just turned her eyes to Bubbles, who stared up at her Buttercup, fuming. "Do you have any Aces?" she asked hotly.

She tossed two Aces at Bubbles. She caught them in midair and and realized that they were floating in front of her hand.

She snatched them out of the air and made a book, setting it aside with the others. Buttercup hadn't noticed the cards floating. She was too busy with her own hand. Bubbles glanced over at Blossom. Blossom stared at her, wide-eyed. _Amazing._

Bubbles looked back, and then tried to act normal as she felt Buttercup look up at Blossom, asking for another card.

Bubbles wasn't paying too much attention, but stared down at the book she just made, and then looked up, past Buttercup. There, on the other side of the room. On the table. The long, thin, dry, wooden paint brush. She could see it, feel its shape, hold it as if it were right in front of her. She imagined herself lifting it, and it rose.

Blossom asked for a card from Buttercup, who told her to go fish.

She turned the brush in midair, and then glanced over to the couch. A stuffed toy. A bird a rooster. She willed, and it too floated gently into the air.

Bubbles knew it was her turn and asked Blossom for a card. Blossom told her to go fish, and she drew a card. It didn't matter what it was. She picked six more things across the room and lifted them, testing her concentration. Buttercup asked her for a card. What a Three? She looked at her hand, and handed over the Three in her hand. Buttercup moved her hands around no, she was making a book. Twelve objects floated. They turned and spun, and raised and lowered and moved and

Something thudded, the room tilted, and then she heard another thump.

"Bubbles!"

She suddenly opened her eyes, staring up at the ceiling. She was laying back, against her metal arms. Her sisters crawled over to her, Blossom cradling her head as soon as she was within reach. "Bubbles, are you all right? You're bleeding!"

Bubbles looked at her, and then licked her lip. She tasted metal no, that was blood. She reached up, pressing her hand against her nose, feeling the warm, fresh blood dripping down her cheeks. She stared at her hand.

Before she could even think about it, she passed out. 

* * *

"...on't know what happened. For now, get me some cold water and a washcloth."

Bubbles opened her eyes. She looked up, seeing Blossom pointing over to Buttercup, barking out orders that she could barely recognize. Buttercup made a hurried cry of assent and darted up to the bathroom, and then Bubbles heard running water. Blossom looked down and jumped. She looked up to the open doorway, and then back to her sister. "Bubbles," she whispered, "what did you do?"

She blinked, and stared back at her. Then she turned away and whispered, "I was just trying to control it. I was... trying to... be distracted."

She paused. "That's it?"

She looked back up and hesitated. "I tried to... focus on... everything at once." She frowned. "I couldn't do it. I'm too weak."

Blossom gave her a dull stare. It was the kind of look she got when she was in trouble. "Bubbles, when I tell you something, it's for your own good that you listen. I told you not to use it." She paused, and glanced up at the open doorway again. The water was still running. "Listen. I'm actually glad this happened. You know why?" Bubbles frowned and shook her head. "It teaches you a lesson."

"What?"

"Power. It's an addiction. It's like... like that drug or whatever that took out Buttercup. If you can't control it, it can wind up hurting you, or your friends... or us."

Bubbles swallowed hard and clutched her hand over her chest. The very thought of hurting either of her sisters... it was so painful.

"It's not something you use because you feel like it. And you're not weak. You just have to learn to control it. Don't let it control you."

"Control what?"

The two of them looked up at Buttercup, holding the basin and a few towels and wash cloths in her hand. She had gotten water down the front of her green one-piece dress, and it clung to her body, her toned muscles visibly tensing as she spoke again. "Control _what?_"

"Nothing," Blossom said hurriedly. She reached out for the bucket. "The water, quickly."

She handed her the basin, as Blossom soaked a rag, wrung out most of the water, and wiped up the blood around Bubbles' face. She winced at the cold, but Blossom didn't let up.

Buttercup watched her work curiously. "Why do we need cold water? Shouldn't you clean her up with warm water?"

"She's feverish," Blossom told her.

"Oh." She went quiet as Blossom wiped up her face, then rinsed the rag, and put it on Bubbles' forehead.

Bubbles realized how hot she was. Her head was burning up. The rag went from too cold to refreshing.

Buttercup was silent for a little while. When she felt the tension had died down a little, she asked, "Control what?"

Blossom held her breath for a moment, pausing for thought. Bubbles froze with her, and had a reactionary yelp muffled when Blossom started wiping again. After a moment, she said, "She's trying to control her new mind-reading powers, and it's frying her brain."

Buttercup laughed despite the current somber mood. "No, seriously. Control what?"

Blossom just shook her head in a way that told Buttercup that was the end of the conversation. Buttercup sat on her heels and scratched her head, looking away. 

* * *

Brian rode down the sidewalk, the bag bouncing against his side as he rocked from one side to the other. He pedaled leisurely, and whipped a newspaper out of his satchel, sending it careening at the first house, which hit the door with a soft thud and landed neatly on the door mat. The ride of his bicycle was smooth, and he turned down the street, barely missing a beat as he lobbed another paper onto the driveway of another house. Three more houses like that, and then he got to the house that until recently had been piling up newspapers forever. Now, all the newspapers were gone. He slowed to a stop and looked at it.

The Powerpuff Girls' house.

Normally, he would have just thrown the newspaper and collected due. But as he looked at the house and at the driveway, there was a new front yard ornament that he couldn't ignore. It was sitting right in the middle of the driveway.

A hand truck.

He glanced at the house, wondering if _she_was home. He hadn't seen her in a while. The other one was always there, and she was really scary, but the little blond girl was nice, and cute, and easy to talk to.

Oh well. He pulled a newspaper out, held it behind his head, and flicked his arm forward, hitting the door, and landing the newspaper on the Welcome mat. He mounted his bicycle and rode on.

Moments later, the door opened and Buttercup poked her head out, wearing her pale-green bra and pajama bottoms. She picked up the newspaper, and look out at the yard. The sun was shining down and making both the grass and the hand truck sparkle.

She yawned and took the paper inside.

In a distant yard, a dog belted out three sharp yips. A car drove past, the engine growling smoothly. An old couple walked peacefully down the street, hand in hand, relaxing in fond memories, waving to the man gardening at the end of the row, breathing in the fresh scent of the mulch, enjoying themselves so intently that they hadn't even the time to feel threatened before the hand truck missed them by inches with a mighty roar of "OH CRAP!" 

* * *

Buttercup whipped open the front door, darted inside, and closed the door behind her. She pressed her back up against it, blushing furiously. After a moment, she realized that her arms were still concealing her chest, and she forced them away. Her face felt hot and she slapped her cheeks to ease her embarrassment.

It was then that she noticed Bubbles and Blossom staring at her from the kitchen. They looked at one another and then back at her.

She cleared her throat and went to join them, the newspapers that lined the floor crackling beneath her feet on every step.

Blossom cocked a smile at her as she sat down. "You in some kind of hurry?"

"No," she said a little too quickly, "no. Just, uh..." she glanced at her bra, "forgot something."

Bubbles giggled.

Soon they got her to laugh about it, and they finished eating breakfast. Bubbles started washing the dishes. Blossom clapped her hands together, rubbing them anxiously. "All right, let's get to work!"

Buttercup looked confused. "Work?"

Blossom looked astonished. She waved a hand in the direction of the living room. "You didn't think we'd buy all that stuff just to stare at it, did you?"

"Oh, no." She lifted up a hand defensively. "No. It just... never mind. Yeah."

Blossom smiled and pushed herself away from the table. Buttercup followed after her.

"So, where do we start?"

Blossom ran her eyes over the things Buttercup had bought, lifting up bags and cans to look under them, and finally pulled out two small blocks of wood, some duct tape and some sandpaper. "Let's get the cracks smoothed out and then we can fill them in with the plaster. After that, we need to let it dry so we can paint." While she spoke, she ripped off several pieces of tape and strapped a piece of sandpaper to the wood, leaving one side to hold and the other side to sand. "Here." She handed the sandpaper block to Buttercup and started on one of her own. "And take one of these." She pulled out a wire brush and handed her that as well. "Work slowly. We don't want to go too deep."

Buttercup nodded intelligently, thought the gesture was wasted because Blossom was facing away. "Got it. I'll start high, you work low."

Blossom gave her a sardonic smile and finished her sanding block. Buttercup just chuckled and picked a spot in the overhead. 

* * *

The Professor stretched and yawned, and pulled himself out of his seat, collected his bag and stepped out of the airplane, into the airport, which brought a wave of chewing gum, hot pretzels, and fresh pizza to his nose. He savored the scent and pressed on. He was heading home. 

* * *

They worked for a solid hour. The work was slow-going, but they got a lot done. The cracks were sanded smooth and brushed clean, and Bubbles had already started mixing the plaster. She looked down at the plaster, cocked her head to the side, and then looked up. "Blossom?"

Blossom wasn't looking at her, instead focusing most of her attention on a thin crack that she was using a rolled-up piece of sandpaper to get at. "Bubbles?" she called back.

"I don't think the plaster is mixing right."

She stopped and finally looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I can't break apart the clumps."

Blossom screwed up her brow. "Why not?"

She held up her right hand. "I don't have any fingers."

Blossom almost face-palmed. "Just mash them against the sides."

"Oh! Okay!"

Blossom grinned. Bubbles was still such a kid.

Bubbles looked up and glared at her.

_Augh. Sorry._

Bubbles' face softened and she kept on her task.

Soon, all the cracks were sanded down and the plaster was nice and thick and ready to use. They all stood by the pile of tools and drums and Blossom sifted through them, pulling out three trowels.

Bubbles pursed her lips nervously.

Blossom noticed, and looked in the direction she was staring. "Bubbles? Are you all right?"

Miraculously, it only took this much prompting to get her to speak. "If... if it's all right with... you..."

Buttercup growled, "What? Come on."

Bubbles tensed a little. "If it's all right with you... I can do it all... myself."

Blossom stared into Bubbles' eyes. There was that _look_. Anxiety and willingness at the same time. Blossom glanced at the arms, hovering like second-nature behind her, deliberately keeping a two-foot gap from all the objects in the room, floating over and around them to avoid hitting them. They seemed to twitch with anticipation.

Buttercup puffed out her jaw. "Sure, if you think you can do it without messing up."

"Buttercup, be nice. She's trying to help."

"Yeah, okay. Sorry."

Bubbles just nodded dourly and pulled one of the metal arms forward to wake the trowel in her right hand, and then the one in her left. She took Blossom's trowel and turned to the bucket of plaster, lifting it with a third metal arm, and then hovered off the ground, the last arm coiling like a spring beneath her.

Blossom and Buttercup hadn't moved, and watched her curiously, craning their heads to the left to get a better view. And then simultaneously, they realized they were staring and shook their heads.

"Let's watch TV," Blossom suggested.

"Yeah, sure. I think there's some UFC on."

"Let's watch that."

"Yeah, cool. Wait, really? I mean, awesome."

"Sure."

Bubbles just giggled, and worked on three separate cracks at once. It was getting easier.

Finally, a half an hour later Bubbles dropped the trowels into the near-empty bucket of plaster, and set it down on one of the many newspapers they had spread out over the carpet. "I'm done," she breathed out.

They turned to look at her. She was sweating.

Blossom raised her eyebrows in surprise. Was dividing her attention three ways really that taxing?

"Yeah," Bubbles said, replying to her thought.

Buttercup didn't notice anything strange. "Great. So what's next on the list?"

"Buttercup, I need you to get the hair dryer from the bathroom, run the extension cord from one of the sockets in the hall and start drying all the plaster. We need it to be hard before we can paint."

Buttercup jumped up, gave a mock salute, and cried, "Yes, Sir! On my way, Sir!" She jumped up and dived into the upstairs bathroom.

They couldn't help but burst out laughing, and Bubbles took a seat next to Blossom, watching the cartoons. Soon the whir of the dryer filled the room, and they had to turn up the TV to hear it.

A little while later, she was done, and turned off the dryer. The TV was too loud. Blossom turned it down and got up, lifting two paint cans out of the pile—one with pink paint, the other with white. "Buttercup, could you shake these?"

"Sure." Buttercup grabbed one and started shaking it up and down. Her arms became a blur as the sloshing of the can became a silent swirl.

Blossom turned, grabbed two paint trays and paint rollers and walked over to the mats of layered newspapers taped to the molding. She set the rollers down, put a tray on either side of her and beckoned to Buttercup. She was still shaking the first can. "That's enough. Take off the lid and pour half of that into a tray. Then do the other can."

While Buttercup did that, Blossom stepped into one of the disposable coveralls and rolled up the sleeves. She waited for Buttercup to finish pouring the pink paint into the tray, then tucked a roller under her arm and lifted the tray with the pink paint carefully off the floor. "I'll start upstairs. Bubbles, could you open a window... actually, crack open the back door and the kitchen window. That way we have some ventilation."

"Okay," Bubbles said, getting up off the couch, her arms floating behind her as she walked.

Blossom made her way carefully upstairs, into the bedroom.

Buttercup fit herself into one of the disposable coveralls, tearing the sleeves off halfway, and rolled her roller in the paint tray. She looked around for a good starting point. 

* * *

"Ahh! Finally."

Professor Utonium rolled his rental car into the driveway. He stepped out and closed the door to his car, a pristine white sedan with a glossy enamel finish. Leaning against the car with one hand, he stared at the house, wrapped up in the fleeting feeling of nostalgia. How long had it really been since he'd just come back here to relax? It felt like forever. He had three weeks of leave now, and he'd get to spend it with his two, precious girls. He took a deep breath and let it out quickly.

Setting his best foot forward, which in this case happened to be his left, he walked up the driveway to the sidewalk and took three easy steps to the front door and raised his right fist.

He stopped, blinking.

He nearly laughed aloud. How silly. It was _his_house. He had every right to just turn the knob and open up the door and nearly get hit in the head with a white paint roller—"WHOA?" He barely dodged in time, stumbling back and falling to the ground, propping himself up with his arms.

Buttercup stared back at him, wide-eyed and astonished. "Professor!"


End file.
